weigh it the natural man may put in the breach of the Law into the scale but he puts in all the bloody aggravations the suffocated light and abused love the quenchings of the spirit and the rejections of Christ the broken vows and lying promises of obedience the stabs of conscience and warning pieces of wrath the measures of delight and obstinacy in sin and the heaps of guilt in reiterated sinning no man makes sin so sinful as he the pure light of faith being up in the heart every scarlet thread in the contexture thereof becomes visible and yet after all this the believer sees more of the holy God about it then others do and that whether he look on the sins of others or his own As to other mens we have many examples in Scripture the messengers that came to Job spake of the Sabeans and Chaldeans oppression but the Lord hath taken away saith holy Job Job 1.21 when Shimei cursed David Abishai looks no further then Shimei why should this dead dog curse my Lord the King saith he but what saith heavenly David the Lord hath said unto him curse David 2 Sam. 16.9 10. In the crucifying of Christ carnal men looked only at the instruments such as Pilate and the Jews were but the Saints saw Gods hand and Gods counsel in it Acts 4.28 As to his own sins there is a famous instance in the Churches complaint O Lord why hast thou made us to err from thy wayes and hardned our heart from thy fear Isa 63.17 What were they not sensible that the error and hardness were their own yes doubtless they were more sensible then others as appears by their mourning and longing for the Lords return yet they cry out why hast thou made us to err and why hast thou hardned us the believer when he looks upon providence and sin hath a spiritual sagacity to determine the matter God is holy while man is unclean God wise while man foolish God merciful while man cruel the light is Gods and the darkness mans the order Gods and the ataxy mans the justice Gods and the unrighteousness mans As to Satan the believer knows him by the word more truly then all the Magitians in the world when Satan shews himself in Magical apparitions he doth but mock the sense and delude the mind but when God shews him forth in the word he appears in his proper colours and true likeness the believer knows him to be of very great power a ruler of darkness a Prince nay a God of this world one that can do great things without in the elements and within in the passions a mighty Leviathan who can make the heart boil as a pot and foam out its own shame and withall he knows that this roaring Lyon is in a chain and cannot go beyond his commission Again the believer knows him to be an old serpent full of methods and devises turning every stone waiting upon every occasion complying with every temper and putting on every shape in his temptations now in the dress and pomp of earthly things and then in Samuels Mantle transforming himself into an Angel of light sometimes carrying men up into the mountain of the world and glorifying vanity before them and sometimes setting them on a pinacle of the Temple to cast them down by the pride of their own duties now speaking in the Language of Nature Master spare thy self and anon in the Language of Scripture it is written thus and thus and all that he may devour or as it is in the Original drink up 1 Pet. 5.8 souls as if he lived upon spirits and no blood would serve him but that of souls And withall the believer knows that the All-wise God can wrap up Satan in his own nets and countermine him in every plot he can awaken us out of the snare and make us see the methods and subtile postures of the devil how he would charm us into presumption or roar us into despair how he stands at our right hand in holy duties and at our left in earthly employments what a murderer he is in stifling holy motions and what a lyar in his false joyes and promises Thus the believer knows more of Satan and his hellish depths then others do As to things past the believer hath a holy sagacity to make a good improvement of them which is most evident in his appropriating Scripture-histories to himself in such or such a state saith he God dealt so or so in a way of mercy or justice and if I come into that state I shall have the same measure because God is ever the same and his mercy and justice have the same aspects towards men as heretofore the believer appropriates good states and good consequents see in what way the goodness of God followed such a man in the very same way will it be with me saith faith if I can strive and wrestle with God in prayer I am in Jacobs state and shall be a prince with God the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much James 5.16 if I am in Joshuaes state fighting against lusts the true Canaanites God will never never leave me nor forsake me that was a particular promise made to Joshua yet is by the Apostle accommodated to believers as being in his state Heb. 13.5 If a man suffer for the true God and his worship he is in the fiery furnace and the son of God is with him to comfort and support him if he have a good conscience made so by the blood and spirit of Christ he is in the Ark and shall never drown in the common perdition 1 Pet. 3.20 21. there is a cloud of witnesses in which faith observes righteousness going before and mercy following after Again the believer appropriates bad states and bad consequents see in what way Gods wrath brake out against such a man in the same way will it break out against me saith faith if I am murmuring and unbelieving I am in the Israelites state and without repentance I shall dye in the wilderness and never enter into rest if I wallow in the mire of gross and sensual sins I am in Sodome and Egypt and may expect their line of plagues and eternal fire if I love the wages of righteousness I am in Balaams way and may look for his end if I sleep in my indulged lust I am in Delilahs lap and like to lose my own strength and Gods presence these are our types or figures as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 10.6 in which we have a lively image and pourtraiture of punishments for sin and from thence may by faith divine that if such sins goes before such wrath will follow after As to the present world which is checkered with good and evil things and hath in it as the Ark had of old a rod and a pot of Manna the believer hath a greater sagacity then others As to the good things of the world no man sees so much of their
vivimus si totum Deo damus Gotteschalcus preaching up the Doctrine of Grace according to St. Austin and Prosper suffered a close Imprisonment for above twenty years together for that Truth and no question he experimented the power of Grace whilest he suffered for it Bonaventura hath a notable passage Hoc piarum mentium est ut nihil sibi tribuant sed totum Dei gratiae It is the true genius of Believers to attribute nothing to themselves but all to Grace And in the same place he saith That holy Men know the influences of Grace Potius experiendo quam ratiocinando rather by experience than argument The profound Bradwardine confesses That at first Pelagius seemed to be in the right it was more grateful to him to hear of Mans power in the Schools of Philosophers than of Gods Grace in the Church But afterwards Gratiae radio visitatus being visited by a beam of Grace from Heaven What a second Austin and Champion for Grace did he prove His Book de Causâ Dei against Pelagius is a sufficient witness thereof After all the great Luther saith in plain terms That Liberum arbitrium est merum mendacium Mans Free-will is but a lie And if any of the Fathers have predicated it certè ex carne ut fuerunt homines non ex Spiritu Dei sunt locuti they spoke according to the flesh as Men not from the Spirit of God and saith of himself That he would not have any thing of Salvation left in his own hand and glories in this Deus salutem meam extra meum arbitrium tollens in suum receperit All is in the hand of Free-grace And a little after concludes Hec est gloriatio omnium Sanctorum in Deo suo After this manner do all the Saints glory in their God crying out over every good thing in themselves Grace Grace Many Books have been wrote touching Will and Grace But were the experiences of Saints written and visible there would appear such Magnalia or wonderful works of Grace that every unbyassed person would say Conclusum est contra Pelagianos There is no doubt but the efficacy of Grace is very great and glorious in the Hearts of men Thus much for a taste may sussice touching the experience of Scriptural Truths Supernatural Truths may be experimented much more such as fall in with the Light of Nature CHAP. XII The Divine Experiments of Faith in Scripture-Ordinances Baptism Preaching of the Word Prayer and the Lords Supper and lastly in the great Works of Power recorded in Scripture IN the next place I proceed to the Divine Ordinances in Scripture These the Believer may experience to be Divine God bare such a Testimony to the Typical Ordinances under the Law that his People experimentally knew that they were from him In Circumcision God set his Seal and Love-mark on his ancient People and at the doing of it they blessed him that a Child was brought into Covenant In their Burnt-offerings fire from Heaven consumed them as a witness of their acceptation Hence the Psalmist prays The Lord accept thy Burnt-sacrisice Psal 20.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in cinerem vertat let him turn it to ashes thereby testifying his acceptance thereof In their first Temple they had many Symbols of Gods Presence as the Ark with the Tables in it and Propitiatory or Mercy-seat by the Vrim and Thummin they could ask Counsel of God the Shechinab the Glory or Majesty of God dwelt between the Cherubims and acceptance in their Services and Sacrifices offered unto God But pretermitting these as being but Shadows and by Christians experimented in Jesus Christ the substance of them I shall instance in the four great standing Ordinances in the Christian Church and shew how the Believer may experience them to be from God and in that experience prove the Scripture which appoints them to be from him also The first Ordinance I shall instance in is that of Baptism This by the Ancients was stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Illumination as ushering in the Evangelical light St. Basil calls it Vestimentum candidum signaculum sancium the white garment and holy sign It is by St. Austin named Porta Gratiae the door of Grace and first entrance into the Church And by St. Bernard Christianismi investitura the first putting on Christianity In Luther it is Aqua non Creatoris sed Dei salvatoris the water not of the Creator but of God the Saviour Among the Jews the Proselyte of the Gates was only tyed to the seven Precepts of Noah but the Proselyte of Righteousness was bound to all the Mosaical Ordinances and was initiated into Judaisin by Circumcision and Baptism and the blood of Oblation The Jewish Rabbins built this Baptism of Proselytes on that Command of God Exod. 19.10 That the people should sanctifie themselves and wash their clothes in order to the reception of the Law Such as were Baptized they called Renati new-born or regenerate and reputed them to be Subalis Divinae Majestatis under the wings of the Divine Majesty But as yet Baptism was no Divine Ordinance but only a Jewish custom Afterwards this custom was turned into a sacred Ordinance in John's Baptism which was not of Men but from Heaven He saith of himself That he was sent to Baptize Joh. 1.33 And by whom St. Luke tells us The word of the Lord came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon John Luk. 3.2 as a Divine Warrant for the Work His Baptism is called The Counsel of God Luk. 7.30 And was sealed from Heaven by a wonderful Theophany the whole Sacred Trinity manifesting themselves at Christs Baptism by him Afterwards Christ gave a solemn charge about it Go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Mat. 28.19 and adds a sweet Promise thereunto Lo I am with you alway even to the end of the world ver 20. Thus Baptism is firmly established in Scripture and the Believer may experience it to be of God He though Baptized an Infant wanting the use of Reason and uncapable in himself to make any formal Vow or Covenant yet finds a secret bond or obligation lying upon his Conscience which remembers him of his Baptism in some such words as those of an Ancient Abrenunciasti Diabolo operibus suis abrenunciasti seculo voluptatibus ejus Thou hast renounced the Devil and his works the World and its pleasures forget not thy Baptism And the reason of this bond is because Baptism is an Ordinance of Stipulation called by St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the stipulation or interrogation of a good Conscience towards God 1 Pet. 3.21 It is an entry into Covenant with God and binds the Conscience Were it no Ordinance of God there would be no Stipulation and so no Obligation upon Conscience But when the Believer finds his Baptismal Vow pressing there he knows that Baptism is of God Again he knows it by the inward strength
Wishes Resolves Choices Desires and Delights there should be smitten and turned into bloody Iniquity is an amazing consideration That a Rational Creature with an Immortal spark in his bosom whose natural instinct is after Happiness should yet without a new Creation not be able so much as by a holy thought to aspire after the great unspeakable blessedness in the Gospel or to give a serious look towards the pure undefiled Religion leading thither and after he is new made by Grace that yet there should be a black sountain within ready to flow out at every sense taint every work and derive a damp a deadness a wretched indisposedness upon all his holy things is an astonishing thought That the holiest Man on Earth who mourns and sighs over the horrible Wickednesses abroad should be forced to lament at home and say there is aliquid intus somewhat in my own heart answering to all these were I but dimissus libero arbitrio left to my own self I might fall into Jonabs pet against the Great God or roll in Davids Adultery and Blood or Peter-like deny my Lord and do it cursing and damning of my self as the Original imports or turn a Julian a total final Apostate and art up my bloody blasphemies against Heaâ—en at my dying hour is wonderfully prodigious ous Such Sentiments as these hath the Believer of Original Sin which make him go groaning under the gravedo thereof as an intolerable burden this Gemitus sanctorum as St. Austin calls it is the first step of this fundamental Mortification Secondly Faith ushers into the Soul a stock of gracious Principles which conflict against the innate corruption and labour to drive it out as the Israelites did the Canaanites by little and little there is even in unregenerate Men a conflict between Reason and the Sensitive Affections Arist Eth lib. 1. c. 13. Reason saith the Philosopher calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the best things but the Affections repugn and refist the Soul is as it were Paralytick whilest Reason would move one way to the right hand Affection moves contrary to the left Aliudque cupido mens aliud suadet Hence the Syllogism of an incontinent man hath as the Schoolmen observe out of Aristotle four Propositions Aquin. pr. secund Medina viz. two universal ones one whereof is from Reason That Fornication is not to be committed another from Passion that Pleasure is to be pursued and Passion binds Reason That it do not subsume and conclude under the first And whilest it remains so the Man subsumes and concludes under the second Epist 56. Seneca tells us Silentium regionis is nothing Si affectus fremunt Reason must compose things or else aâ—â— will be in tumult in the Soul In this natura conflict Reason if improved to maintain it own grandeur and royalty may by its Edict hush the tumults and mutinies in the Affections and prevent many shames and turpitudes of Sensuality but alas there is nothing of true Mortification in all this no not in the Affections themselves which are not inwardly changed but only as the Horse and Mule held in with the rational bit or bridle much less in the Reason in which there is a great deal of vanity dark ignorance proud curiosity fleshly wisdom vain philosophy humane folly and perverse contradiction in all which Reason will rather indulge than crucifie it self but Faith ushers in another manner of Conflict In the Natural Conflict Reason is General and manages the War and as the Reason is so is the strength in Battel but Humane only In the Spiritual Conflict there is a greater than Reason even Supernatural Grace which being of Divine extraction hath in it self a power more than Humane to oppose corruption and which yet makes it stronger it hath continual Auxiliaries from the Holy Spirit which is always standing at the right hand of Grace as Satan is of Corruption to back and strengthen it In the Natural Conflict the fight is in a Logical and Argumentative way only and Reason being corrupt like a cunning Sophister turns about and stands ever and anon on the same side with Sin but in the Spiritual Conflict there can be no such compliances the War is laid in nature Grace in its very nature carries an enmity against corruption and irreconcilably interminably opposes it as long as Grace is Grace and Sin Sin In the Natural Conflict Reason fights but ex parte only against the gross carnal sensual lusts which stain Humanity in the mean time the pride perversness and desperate contradiction which dwell in the upper faculties are altogether untouched The Moralist stands upon bis own bottom full of self-power and self-righteousness and because he hath by his Reason conceived and brought forth some Moral Virtues Free-grace and its progeny born after the Spirit are despised in his eyes than which temper there is nothing more diametrically opposite to the Gospel which would have Men come in to Jesus Christ weary heavy laden hungry thirsty poor in spirit lost in themselves and sensibly wanting all things But in the Spiritual Conflict the War is universal Grace sights against all Sin not only against the gross carnal lusts which have more of the beast in them but against the fine Spiritual ones which have more of the Devil nor only against those open Sins which face the World but against those secret ones which lie hid in the Heart So opposite it is that as in the War against the Canaanites it would destroy every thing that breaths Sin in the first motions and titillations thereof in the Natural Conflict the fight is between distinct faculties Reason and Passion and so is at a distance and as it were by missile arms but in the Spiritual Conflict the fight is close and immediate there is something of Grace in every faculty to encounter the corruption there In the Understanding there is an Heavenly Wisdom which counterplots the Earthly as Hushai did Ahithophel whilest the one designs for Absalom the rebellious lust in the Heart the other stands up for the Kingdom of Christ the true David In the Will there is an holy Principle which ballinces the corrupt and is as a counter-byass to the Heart drawing it off from the false beatitudes to the true In the Affections there is a Divine spark which makes them aspire and elevate towards Heavenly things whilest the earthly part clogs and presses them downwards In a word Grace is spread all over the Soul as the Israelites were over Canaan to drive out the old inhabitant the corruption in every faculty In the Natural Conflict Man walks in his own Circle the only desigu is for the Kingdom of Reason and which is the common blast upon Morality nothing is done in ordine ad Deum In the Spiritual Conflict the aim is all for God and Christ that their Throne may be in the Heart and all their enemies there may be made their footstool Thus Grace ushered into the
of Gods Countenance towards me and lye down in the dismal borders of Hell and Death How can I do it Such a restraint as this is a degree of Mortification Sin begins to die when such chains and manacles as these are cast upon it Secondly Faith doth not only restrain the outward acts of Sin but strikes at the life of it that is the love thereof and to this end Faith clearly demonstrates that Sin is not eligible or an object fit for an Humane Will Sin shews it self as eligible many ways but Faith destroys all those eligibilities Take Sin as meer Sin in the abstract and so it is evil and only evil and as the Schools generally determine Sub ratione mali it is not it cannot be eligible at all and yet even in the notion of meer Sin it becomes eligible Sub ratione convenientiae as it is congruous to the corrupt Heart of Man The Socinian and Pelagian Errors are welcome meerly as Parasites to the pride of Reason and Will In Sins of Omission the very neglect gratifies Mans aversness from good in Sins of Commission the very violation of the Law complies with his enmity thereunto Saint Austin in his Confessions Lib. 2 cap. 4. says That he stole Apples that he might Frui non re ipsa sed furto that he was Gratis malus amavit defectum suum casting away the Apples he feasted on the iniquity or if he took any of them into his mouth Condimentum facinus erat Sin was the only fawce thereof Man drinketh in iniquity like water the very sinfulness is connatural This eligibility before Faith must needs be very strong for to Man in the pride and self-flattery of Nature nothing is sweeter or dearer than to walk in the way of his Heart as absolute unaccountable Lord of all his Actions but when Faith comes then it clearly appears that the corrupt Heart into which Sin insinuates by congruity is too vile a thing to be gratified it steals away from holy Duties plays false after fair promises hatches treason and rebellion against God and like a common Strumpet prostitutes it self to every temptation that passes by to gratifie it is to feed a disease or vicious humour satisfie a grave or gulf of inordinate desires put the darling Soul into the mouth of Satan and desperately leap into the bottomless pit that corruption to which Sin is so grateful is an accursed thing destinated by the Gospel to be crucified and slain without mercy and those reliques of it which after the greatest mortifications remain are to be mourned and groaned under as the heaviest burden in the world What the Jewish fringes did typifie that the Christians Faith operates in keeping men from seeking after their own heart but to go on take sin not as meer sin but in the dress of some apparent good let it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a well-circumstanced Sin as a learned man takes that place Heb. 12.1 flowing in riches or rowling in sensual pleasures or holding forth Crowns and Scepters and all Mundane glory nay if it were possible let it invest it self with a Creation all the lower World cannot make it eligible to Faith Set down a World if Faith substract but a God or a Soul what will remain but infinite damage those treasures which glitter so much to dark sense are to Faith but poor rusty moth-eaten things that which is substance to the World is to Faith but a shadow an apparition a thing that is not a mark too low for an Immortal Soul to fly at These things at present and in the Now-World seem something but if Faith look through the World unto the universal conflagration and beyond it to the World to come what will they signifie Are they able to survive those last flames or purchase any thing in the World to come Surely just nothing except only so much thereof as is exchanged thither in Charity and good Works to Faith the whole inventory of them is but a great cheat the Riches are not the true ones the Gold is not that tried in the fire the Land doth not lie in the Country which Faith seeks after there is nothing in them to feed or cloth or enrich the inward man and to hazard a God or a Soul for them must needs be an infinite loss And what are the pleasures of this World to Faith In carnal Sins they are but the titillations of sense in which the Rational faculties were they not Spiritually incarnate and become flesh would have no touch of delight In Spiritual Sins they are but the false gusts of a vitiated Reason and Will which if made right by Faith find no congruity but in what is true and good neither of which can be in a Sin In both momentany as they are they perish in the using and die in the embraces like the dead Son of the Emperour Basilius Macedo who being Magically presented to his Father as alive after a few touches and doting glances disappeared so they go off only they leave a sting and a worm behind them in Conscience and the poor Voluptary without repentance must lie down in eternal sorrow a thought whereof is enough to imbitter all their sweetness And are Mundane glories any better in Faiths account Honour is but a blast a little popular air Monarchies have their periods History gives us a prospect of their vanity and much more Faith which translates the Soul into the everlasting Kingdom and from thence looks on the Empires of the World as the chaff of the Summer-floor rolling away with the wind of time To a man up among the Stars the whole Earth would be but as a small thing and such are Crowns and Scepters to one conversing in Heaven in the midst of them a man may want true greatness the World 's Epiphanes may be but a vile person a slave to his lusts which is the greatest servitude at death he may like Adrian moan over his little Soul and at Judgment cry out to the rocks and mountains to fall upon him and cover him from the presence of the Lord. But to proceed and take Sin in another dress let it come as a worldly Saviour entertain it and you shall be delivered from losses reproaches racks persecuting flames and cruel deaths it will not yet be eligible Faith in the love of its espousals and upon the first contract received a whole Christ Cross and all and so virtually and in purpose hath already swallowed down all persecutions which go along with the Gospel and when the actual trial comes Faith will not escape by iniquity which is an evil transcendently greater than all the rest and whilest it outwardly temporally saves inwardly eternally destroys To Faith there is no loss like that of a Soul no reproach like Sins turpitude no racks like those in Conscience no flames or deaths like those in Hell Which made those tormented Worthies not accept deliverance Heb. 11.35 Sin is meer Sin
the Old though not as named Apostolical Constitutions the manner was first one Presbyter preached then another and last of all the Bishop At this time there was good store of Preaching Damasus the First Bishop of Rome in his Epistle de Chorepiscopis shews how unlike Christ they are who preach not Ipse enim docuit ipse ovem perditam quaesivit ipse propriis humeris reportavit Christ did all himself St. Austin and St. Chrysostom preached every day ye heard yesterday ye shall hear to morrow is common in their Homilies Many of the Writings of Ambrose Nazianzen Basil and Cyril were only their Sermons to the People and therefore in Concilio Vasensi held about the Year of our Lord 440 it was ordered That if the Presbyter were sick and unable to Preach Sanctorum Patrum Homiliae à Diaconis recitentur The Deacons should read the Homilies of the holy Fathers Gregory the Great in his Pastoral saith Qui verbum praedicationis subtrabunt animabus morientibus vitae remedia abscondunt The unpreaching Minister hides the Bread of Life from dying souls The fourth Toletan Council which was a little after Gregory saith Omne opus Sacerdotum in praedicatione consistit Preaching is a Ministers All. In the Council of Mentz under Charles the Great It was Ordered Can. 25. Nunquam desit diebus Dominicis qui Verbum Dei Praedicet On Sabbath days a Preacher must not be wanting No though the Bisliop be sick it must not as that Can. saith In the Oxford Constitutions made by Archbishop Stephen Preaching is enjoined ne canes muti merito judicentur Nay the very Council of Trent saith that Preaching is praecipuum munus Episcopi the chief work of a Bishop Such an Ordinance is this and so highly esteemed in all Ages no wonder if Bishop Morton said The custom of not-Preaching is but a Babe in Christianity and the defence thereof a new point of Learning in Christs School But to return to the Point in hand after this long digression the Believer may experience this Ordinance to be of God That it is so is in part expermented before Conversion Whilest St. Paul but a Prisoner preached of Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come Felix though a Judg trembled feeling moral bonds cast on his Conscience by the Power of that Word which is never bound It is yet more fully experimented in Conversion in which there is a wonderful change wrought the dead being raised new Creatures formed Lyons turned into Lambs and hearts of Stone into Flesh all proclaiming that the Finger of God is in it of a Truth Johannes Speicerus as Scultetus relates Preached so powerfully That the very Strumpets leaving their lewdness returned home unto God After Conversion the Experiment is yet more compleat the Word works effectually in them that believe 1 Thess 2.13 The glory of the Divine Attributes break forth in this Ordinance out of the seeming weakness a Majesty appears in some sort much as Christs Deity sparkled out of his Humane Flesh It is not the meer Voice of Man but of God coming with an Authority more than Humane and setting the heart made like Josiah's tender by Faith into an holy trembling at it as a signal proof that the Lord is the Speaker One who hath the Keys of Heaven and Hell in his own hand and upon Obedience or Rebellion is able to save or destroy The Believer by the command and reverential awe put upon his Conscience finds That there is a Divine Presence and Grandeur in it which to oppose is to strive and make War with God himself Again out of the seeming foolishness wisdom discovers it self Whilest but a man is teaching outwardly to the ear there is an inward Teacher in the heart The Spirit of Revelation uncovers the holy things and brings forth this or that sacred Mystery to the View Intus datur intus coruscat intus revelatur as St. Austin expresses it The Father of Lights shews himself there in sacred Revelations Christ seals up the Ordinance by the dropping of the holy Unction A Believer meets with such illuminations as are far more precious than all the Lights in Nature Hence St. Chrysostom's Auditors when he was like to be silenced cried out Satius est ut Sol non luceat quam ut Chrysostomus non doceat It were better to lose the Sun than such a burning shining light as he was The entrance or opening of thy words giveth Light saith the Psalmist Psal 119.130 When the Word preached is admitted into the heart by Faith and there opened by the Holy Spirit a celestial Light rises up and bears Witness to the Ordinance Again in the midst of plainness Divine Omniscience shews forth it self the Minister stands without but the Word enters in and anatomizes the heart Elisha proved himself a Prophet in telling what the King of Syria spake in his Bed-chamber Our Saviour manifested his Deity in answering to the thoughts of Men. When the Word preached penetrates into the retiring-rooms and inmost chambers of the heart and there rifles the very thoughts and unriddles the purposes and inclinations It is an infallible Sign that the Great Searcher of hearts hath sent a Beam of Omniscience along with it The Believer who above all other men studies himself most desires much to know two things viz. What of secret sin there is in him and what of truth of Grace And under this searching Ordinance he comes to see many a mote or black spot in his heart such as he never dream't of and withal some marks and characters which to his comfort shew him his uprightness and in such Discoveries he sees the Great Revealer of Secrets co-operating with the Word Moreover whilest the Minister is unfolding the Gospel such are the ravishing savours of Christ and Grace as if a box of Heavenly Spikenard were broken in the Believers Heart Pardon and Peace smell out of the odours of Christs Merits and Heaven it self out of his pure Righteousness Through this lattice how contemptible soever it be to carnal Men Christ shews his all-desirable self and full treasures Free-Grace communicates pardons and love-tokens the Divine Spirit breaths life and power into Believers quickning and awakening to answer the pure Commands with Obedience and this and that Promise le ts out its sweetness and flows as a Conduit of Coelestial Wine with admirable Suavities and Consolations In such things as these Faith hath sweet Communion with God and a sure seal set to this Ordinance In the Preaching of the Gospel the Kingdom of Heaven comes nigh even to rejecters Luk. 10.11 Much more doth it do so unto Believers who take the holy Mysteries and Promises into the bosom and complex of Faith and thereby inflame their Hearts with the Love of Christ and Grace as a sure witness that this Ordinance which carries so much of Heaven in it is from thence Next to the Preaching of the Word I shall set the Ordinance of Prayer This is the ascent of
Barbara St. Dorothy St. Margaret to these came the Foolish for Oyl that is as the Actor interpreted it That they would intercede with God for their admission into Heaven They knocked and wept and instantly prayed but the Wise denied and bid them be gone At this sight the Nobleman was astonished crying out What is the Christian Religion if none of the Saints will hear and intercede for us And soon after he died of an Apoplexy 'T is sad being shut out from the presence of God The Believer is as they say of the Rhodians in sole positus He is nigh unto God and hath his Religion proved to him in that he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 access or manuduction unto God The way into the Holy of Holies is open through the veil of Christs flesh and the Holy Spirit doth conduct him in thither He may come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with boldness unto the throne of Grace and there utter all his mind as a Child doth to his Father David in the 13th Psalm begins as if God were totally absent How long wilt thou forget me O Lord for ever How long wilt thou hide thy face from me But a little after we have him in the joy and triumph of Faith I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation saith he ver 5. The door of Mercy which for a little time was shut up soon opened again and gave him a free access unto God Thirdly He experiments it in the returns of Prayer the Promises by which God binds his own bowels above are let down here below in the Gospel And as the Believer takes hold of them by Prayer so God is touched with a compassionate feeling thereof Whilst Ephraim was bemoaning himself in his Supplication Gods bowels are troubled and fall a-sounding at it Jer. 31.18 20. Coelum tundimus misericordiam extorquemus saith Tertullian We knock at Heaven and fetch down mercy from God Prayer hath done Wonders in the world At Abrahams Prayer God stoops to such low terms that he would have saved Sodom for ten righteous persons Jacob by Prayer wrestles and becomes a Prince with God which is more than to have all the Monarchies of the World Moses by it binds as it were the Almighty and will not let him alone to consume Israel Joshua stopt the Chariot of the Sun and so made a long day for the improvement of his Victory Elias locked up Heaven and till he turned the Key of Prayer the contrary way there was no rain upon the Earth In the time of Marcus Antoninus the Philosopher the Christian Legion by their Prayers procured Water for the Roman Army and a scattering Tempest against their Enemies and were therefore called Legio fulminatrix The thundring Legion Prayer hath a kind of Omnipotence in it and can do every thing Sometimes the Prayer is returned in Specie in the very thing desired as Hannah's was in a Son whom therefore she called Samuel that is Asked of God In this case the Believer hath a double Blessing in one over and above the common Providence he hath a pregnant proof of his Prayer in it A Blessing which is a meer Providence comes up as the Corn doth with the husk or chaff of one vanity or other as a Memento of that blast which Sin brought upon the World But that which is a Fruit of Prayer is as Manna from Heaven pure and unmixt a Blessing and no sorrow added to it as being the Birth of the Promise and Covenant The Blessings of the former sort are gathered up by Men as Acorns are by Swine without looking up to that Grace which as a Tree of Life bears all the good Fruit But the latter raises up the Heart in the admirations and high-praises of the great Donor as we see in Hannah who returned back her Son assoon as received unto God in Praise and Dedicacation Criticks have observed an elegant Paranomasia in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore I have lent him to the Lord 1 Sam. 1.28 Samuel was first Shaiil meel Asked of God and then Shaiil leel lent or returned to God Those Blessings which are drawn down by Prayer lie not dead here below but are sent back again in Praise Sometimes the Prayer returns another way though it be not heard ad voluntatem it is ad utilitatem The answer is in some thing that profits us though not to the express desire of our Hearts it may be it is in the sweet composure of the Heart Upon Prayer God comes in and rebukes the Winds and Seas of Passion and there is a calm and Divine serenity in the Soul Hannab before Prayer was a Woman of a sorrowful spirit but her Soul being poured out unto God returned with a Divine sweetness Her countenance was no more sad 1 Sam. 1.18 It may be there is an inward support which is tantamount to the Blessing desired Our Saviours Prayer against the Cup of Wrath was heard in that he was enabled to drink and overcome it And St. Paul's against the Thorn in the Flesh in that he had sufficient Grace to withstand it Preclarè nobiscum agitur dum adest Dei Gratia quae nobis subveniat saith Reverend Calvin In the Supports of Grace there is a signal answer of Prayer it may be over and above the Support the Beams of Gods Love break in upon the heart This is a little Heaven here below and richly transcends all this world Bellarmin tells us a Story of an old Man who used to rise from Duty with these words Claudimini Oculi mei claudimini nihil enim pulchrius jam videbitis Be shut O my Eyes be shut for I shall never behold a fairer Object than Gods Face which I have now beheld The Love of God irradiating a Prayer is a ravishing sight far better than life and all its comforts It may be there is a transmutation of the Blessing into another such as God who improves the stock of Prayer to the best advantage knows to be better for us David prayed earnestly for his sick Child and the return of it was in a Solomon a Jedidiah beloved of God One way or other the Believers Prayer returns into his bosom being answered at least secundum cardinem according to the main hinge and scope of it which is Gods glory and Mans comfort or happiness Thus Moses's Prayer to go into Canaan was answered according to the ground of it Instead of the type God takes him up to Heaven the true Canaan which was most for Mases's comfort And instead of Moses a type of the Law Joshua a type of Christ leads the people into Canaan which was most for Gods Glory Which way soever the Prayer returns to the Believer it seals up the Ordinance for Divine In the last Place I come to the Ordinance of the Lord Supper The outward Elements of this Sacrament our Lord Christ took as Learned Men conceive from a custom observed among the
he had a true Virtue in him or no but seeming afraid of the Judgment-Seat unto some who begged his Prayers when in Heaven he made this Answer The way thither is not so easie I should esteem it a great Blessing from God if I might obtain Purgatory for many years Into such labyrinths do their Principles lead them The Reason whereof is They espouse Hagar the Covenant of Works and that gendreth to bondage and servile fear They corrupt the great Fountain of Peace and Joy I mean free Justification by Christ and Grace and their Comforts cannot run pure They would compound those two incompatibles of Grace and Merit and patch together Christs Righteousness and their own which in the Apostle is to fall from Grace and make Christ of none effect Gal. 5.4 And what Peace can follow Whilst they look at the Law Conscience will be still murmuring Non recte sacrificasti non recte orasti as Luther hath it This and that was omitted or not well done The Levite and the Priest pass by their Wounds the good Samaritan will not come but alone and without a co-partner to make a Cure If therefore thou wouldst have Assurance thou must build on the right Foundation and lie at the true Fountain of Comfort Thy Love and thy Obedience are but Evidences Christ and Grace are the only Foundation Thy Faith is but a receiver an empty vessel Christ and Grace are the Fountain of Comfort Expect no rest but in his bleeding Wounds look for no comfortable words but from the Mercy-Seat Think not that thy Conscience shall be appeased unless by that Blood of Atonement which appeased God himself or that thy heart may be satisfied in a Righteousness less than that perfect one which satisfied Gods Conscience is his Deputy and cannot go off at lower terms than he himself doth Fix thy heart on Christ and Grace lay the whole stress of thy Soul and Salvation there Lean on thy Beloved appropriate his Merits and Righteousness to thy self Thus Luther tells the menacing Law O Lex Immergo Conscientiam meam in Vulnera Sanguinem Mortem Resurrectionem Victoriam Christi praeter hunc nibil plane videre audire volo O Law I drown my Conscience in the Wounds Blood Death Resurrection and Victory of Christ besides him will I see and hear nothing This is the true way of Peace Jahannes a Berg a zealous Papist in his life found it so at last by his own experience When a Protestant-Friend admonished him then lying on his sick-bed That now he would by Faith apprehend the Merit of his Saviour and acquiesce in the full Expiation by him made for sin he immediately swallowed it as the richest Comfort in the World looking on those in Popery but as so many vain Fig-leaves When Assurance which is the top-stone of Faith is laid in our hearts we have reason to cry out Grace Grace Christ Christ These whatever our Duties and Works have been are the Fundamental Reason of all Peace and Comfort Again He who would have Assurance must not grieve or quench the Holy Spirit but cherish and follow it It cannot but be a great and marvelous thing in his eyes that the holy Spirit should make his heart a Temple or Sanctuary for himself To grieve it is unnatural and to grieve it expecting comfort a contradiction If thou wouldst be assured grieve it in nothing indulg not any lust This is filthiness and to be carried out of the Sanctuary this is an Idol and must not stand in the Temple Bury thy excrements thy superfluity of naughtiness that the holy one may walk in the midst of thee Take away the accursed thing lest his Presence depart Away with thy vomits thy sensual sins lest he complain that there is no place for him left in thy heart Pride not thy self in gifts or graces this is as a smoak in his nose to force him away from thee grieve not him whereby thou mayst be sealed to the day of Redemption He comes to seal Pardon and Peace and Heaven it self to thy Soul why shouldst thou grieve him If thou dost so How canst thou expect to be sealed by him Instead of Sealing he will turn to be thine Enemy as he did to those Rebels Isa 63.10 He will meet thee in some straits of Providence and by one threatning or other as by a drawn Sword stop thee in thy perverse way Oh! do not grieve him gather out of thy heart and life every thing that offends and his Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace and Joy shall be in thee When an holy Truth appears to thee smother it not for a World it comes from the pure Spirit to light thee to Heaven Walk in the Light of it Who knows but that whilst thou art in the way the Spirit may drop some heavenly Cordials upon thy Heart Obedience is the true Road to Comfort Excellent is that in the Prophet Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going is prepared as the morning and he shall come to us as the rain Hos 6.3 Follow him in his Truths and thou shalt know him in his Comforts Gods Face shall be as an aurora or morning lighter and lighter on thy Soul and his Spirit as the dew or rain distilling Divine Consolations on it Believe it every ray of Truth if followed leads to the Joy unspeakable When an holy Motion comes remember who is the Speaker That Spirit who can seal the Promises and print Gods Love on the Heart now calls thee to one Duty or other Hear and thy Soul shall live open thy Sails and the Gales will blow thee to the fair Haven of rest I may say of the Spirits Motion as he in the Prophet doth of the Wine in the Cluster Destroy it not for a Blessing nay the greatest of Blessings a Paraclete a Divine Comforter is in it Follow on and thou shalt come to the Vintage and Wine-cellar of pure Consolations such as Earth assords not The Holy Spirit can witness to thy Graces and seal up Gods favour to thee and be to thee an earnest of Heaven and eternal Life As thou wouldst be assured welcome every motion close with every dictate cherish every illapse of this blessed Monitor let every inspiration find thee as the Seal doth the Wax and the spark the Tinder let thy Soul follow hard after him pursuing him E vestigio step by step as near and close as thou canst possibly This is the true way to rest Again if thou wouldest have Assurance first make Conscience pure and then walk after it That Pardon and Salvation which is founded in Christs Blood and sealed by his Spirit must be recorded and reported in Conscience or else there can be no Assurance If our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 3.21 He allows what his Deputy doth in us I say make thy Conscience pure Two things chiesly impure it Ignorance is as a
a thing above moral virtue There is a vâ—st difference between moral virtues and spiritual graces the seeds of moral virtues are found in lapsed nature but of spiritual graces there are none at all in it nothing but a naked capacity Moral virtues do from those natural seeds bud and spring forth into being under the common influence of the spirit but spiritual graces not being seeded in nature are meer infusions or creations the seed of God must drop down from heaven into the heart or else these cannot exist hence the Apostle in contradistinction to the virtues of men calls them the virtues of God 1 Pet. 2.9 such a thing is faith of a nobler extraction then all the moral virtues in the world Thirdly This precious Faith advances both our natural faculties and our moral virtues It advances our natural faculties and so shews it self what it is grace is nature elevated above it self a reason with an heavenly light in it a will with an holy law in it and affections as it were upon the wings of Angels soaring into the upper world After such sort doth faith elevate the humane faculties when faith comes God shines into the heart and then the Reason which before had a cloud on it sparkles out as a pearl in the Sun-beams the day-star is up in the heart and whilest others live by candlelight the believer hath the Sun then the will which lay in its lusts as a slave in its chains is set upon the wheel and made free indeed then the affections which conversed among the tombs of the creatures are no longer here but are risen with Christ to seek the things above Moreover it advances moral virtues also it grafts them upon a nobler stock they are no longer meer blossoms of reason but fruits of the spirit Josephus relating the patience of the Maccabees under the torments of the bloody Antiochus cryes up Reason Reason as if that were the rock upon which they stood but sure he speaks below them a greater then reason was there even faith as the Apostle asserts Heb. 11.35 a higher spirit then their own acted in their patience and elevated it above meer morality Again meer moral virtues issuing meerly out of our own reason are apt to breed a moth of pride and vain self-reflection here we find the Moralist crowing after a strange rate Beatae vitae causa firmamentum est sibi sidere turpe est Deos fatigare Sence Epist 31. quid votis apus est fac te felicem exurge te dignum singe Deo as if he would have no other happiness but what was of his own making but when Faith comes off go the plumes of pride and humility is as a vail over all the moral virtues I live in temperance and justice saith the believing Moralist yet not I but Christ liveth in me Add hereunto meer moral virtues in their intention rise no higher then their own level of humanity but when faith comes there is a pearl in the head a pure intention in each of them towards the glory of God he that before was temperate to himself just to others and patient to necessity is now all these to God Feci Deo is the Motto of every moral act To conclude what sweet and strong motives Faith adds unto moral virtues may appear in the famous instance of Justus Lipsius Melch. Adam Vit. Philosoph that great humanist and admirer of Morality who in his last sickness being told by one present that he might now fetch much comfort from the Stoical Philosophers made this answer Illa sunt vana Domine Jesu da mihi patientiam Christianam those are but vain things Lord Jesus give me a Christian patience Thus much touching Faith in general CHAP. II. Of the special nature of Faith and here of Spiritual Illumination the first ingredient therein What it is with the necessity thereof unto Faith demonstrated THE next thing is to consider Faith in its special nature and here the first thing in order is supernatural illumination touching which I shall first shew what that is and then demonstrate the necessity of it to Faith And first what it is it is God shining into the heart and lighting our candle to make us discern divine things in a spiritual way It is an illumination above nature subjectively and not objectively only it is a thing above reason and all its improvements made upon external objects reason may be taken in a double posture either sitting with the glass of the creatures before it and so it is meerly the light of nature or else sitting with the glass of the Scriptures before it and so it is a notional knowledge of Divinity but this supernatural light is above reason in both these postures First take reason with the creature-glass before it and this supernatural light is much above it And here I might shew how much the Scripture-glass excells that of the creature the divine words there out-shine the Sun out-weigh the earth out-vye all the treasures and out-relish all the sweetnesses in nature God is more glorious in the Scripture-robes then in all the visible world his chariot in the word is statelier then that in the clouds Evangelical light is a richer garment upon him then meer natural in the creature there is but a print or footstep of God but in the Scripture there is his very image and resemblance Also which is a consequent on the former this supernatural light having the purer glass is of a far greater latitude then meer reason it spreads it self into many mysteries which never entred into natural reason but were hid from ages in the divine mind it takes a view of those rare Evangelical pearls which were never digged out of reasons mine but dropt down from heaven unto the sons of men But because the comparison of these two lights as to their outward glasses and latitudes is not so pertinent I shall compare them as to their inward natures and only in such things as both of them extend unto and a vast difference will appear between them First Reason is a far lower light then that of Faith in natural light Reason is the very faculty but in supernatural it is but a capacity God must shine into the heart there must be light upon light supernatural upon natural or else there is no faith David prays open or as the original hath it reveal thou mine eyes Psal 119.18 There is in faith a revelation of eyes and not of objects only the Apostle speaks of being renewed in the very spirit of the mind Eph. 4.23 the rational spirit is the candle of the Lord but unless it be new lighted it is too dim since the fall to believe the things of God Secondly Reason is a far weaker light then that of Faith It is a light shining in darkness and after all its glimmerings it leaves but a foolish heart and vain imaginations Rom. 1.21 it is as a little spark 〈◊〉 an
preamble of faith Nay in the Apostle it is the first fundamental faith He that cometh to God must believe that he is Heb. 11.6 But you will say What need supernatural light for this Nature and Reason make this known and indeed they do so but so weakly as not to raise up any one faculty in fallen man unto God his Creator Never did natural light so shew a God as to raise up his love out of this vain world nor as to raise up his faith out of creature-confidences unto God Wherefore this first principle must be seen by a supernatural light which is indeed a middle kind of light between the light of glory above and the light of nature below It sees the invisible one not as the blessed Saints see him in the heavenly vision nor as the meer Naturalists see him by the glimmerings of reason but in a middle way of gracious illumination This our Saviour calls eternal life Joh. 17.3 heaven dawns in it and nature is illustrated by it Secondly As the first step of knowledge in order to faith is Deus est so the second is Deus verax God is true yea truth it self and the first archetypal truth his testimony is infallible and all his words Yea and Amen Unless this be known a man cannot believe him as a God the believer sets to his seal that God is true And if he did not know it his seal would be to a blank and though natural light reveal the truth and veracity of God yet as I said before weakly and therefore supernatural is required Thirdly The third step of knowledge in orâ—â—r to faith is Deus dixit seu revelavit God hath spoken or revealed himself in the Scriptures These are the very words and testimony of God himself If a man do know that God is and is true yet unless he know that God hath spoken in the word that there is his very testimony he cannot believe Should we ask a man why do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world it would be no rational answer for him to say I believe it because God is true No though God be the first infinite truth yet unless he speak and testifie so much it cannot be believed upon his testimony or authority the only satisfactory answer is this I believe it because God who is true hath spoken and revealed it It is necessary to faith to know the holy Scriptures to be the word and testimony of God that God speaks and reveals himself in them and this cannot be known without supernatural light To explain which I shall lay down two things First There are in the holy Scriptures certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or internal marks whereby it may be known that the Scriptures are the word and testimony of God Secondly These 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or internal marks cannot be known without supernatural light First There are in the holy Scriptures certain marks or characters whereby they reveal themselves to be the very word of God even as the Sun manifests it self by its own light There is a Majesty in the stile what book or writing ever run in such a strain as thus saith the Lord where before it was there ever any universal Law made unto all mankind Kings and beggars without distinction who ever before commanded obedience upon pain of eternal torments in another world or allured obedience with promises of everlasting glory there The fiery Law carries an awe with it as if the thunders and lightnings of Sinai were not yet over And in the Gospel the kingdom of heaven approaches and opens it self to believers as it were in sparkles of glory Again there is a treasure of Divine mysteries touching the sacred Trinity Nature is mute but Scripture speaks out Reason is but a little child and cannot pass this infinite Abyss unless Faith in the word take him upon his back and carry him over Touching that Incarnation of the Son of God never any natural man dreamed or so much as started a thought of it but in Scripture this and all the train of mysteries in our Redemption break forth in their glory That book which hath such and the like mysteries infinitely transcending all the thoughts and reasons of man doth by them shew that it came out of the bosom of God himself Again there is an unparallel'd purity in it such as is no where else to be found This Sun hath no spots in it this Diamond hath no flaws in it there is nothing terrene or carnal in this heavenly piece as long as it hath stood in the world not a dust or a dreg can be found therein neither ever did or will it licence the least of erratas in man In its pure spiritualness it casts a chain upon the very thoughts and first motions of sin and traces up sin to the black nest of corruption in lapsed nature it calls for a pure heart made from heaven in regeneration and new-creation and the noblest births of Reason and Morality will not serve the turn Such things as these are not so much as named in the writings of the worlds Sophies Plato and Aristotle never arrived at such notions Moreover it hath a wonderful efficacy on the hearts of men it looks into the inmost closet and retiring room of the heart and like Christ it comes and stands in the midst of it when all the doors are shut by obstinacy and unbelief it awakens and alarums the sleeping sinner and makes such impressions and deep wounds in the conscience that it plainly appears no less then the arm of God was in it It Evangelizes the heart and turns it into its own nature that it may be a Temple for that spirit which breaths in the Gospel It comforts the heart and fills it with joy unspeakable and full of glory That place Rom. 1.17 was to Luther porta Paradisi the door of Paradice and that 1 Tim. 1.15 was a sea of sweetness to holy Bilney such activities as these are above the sphear of nature and speak no less then the divine extraction thereof Lastly to name no more the very plot and design of the Scriptures is transcendently divine all the holy lines run into that central divinity that God is to be exalted and man debased Oh! what manner of self-denial doth it call for how doth it labour to un-selve and as it were un-man us that God may be all in all There Reason as fair a Jewel as it is must vail its beauty in an acknowledgment of its own folly and yield up it self to be new lighted from heaven The Will as free an Empress as it is must lay by its Crown in a confession of its spiritual slavery and yield up it self to be made free by grace The Man must be no longer a man in himself but a man in Christ clothed in a better righteousness and acted by a higher spirit then his own And how doth it open the glory and blazon
as the Schoolman hath it true believers nec per argumenta nec per tormenta nec per blandimenta inclinari possunt ut veritatem saltem ore tenus negent nothing could turn them away from the truth So strong a thing is faith when it is set upon the rock the testimony of God but if it have an humane bottom only such as the Churches authority it is weak and wavering more like a fluctuating opinion then a faith Durandus asserts that Science is more certain than faith and to that strong objection that the divine authority by which we believe is more certain then any humane reason by which we know he answers thus Divina autoritas propter quam credimus licet sit certissima in se non tamen nobis qualitèr enim certi simus L. 3. dist 23. quest 7. quod Deus dicat ea quae credimus non nisi quia sic tenet Ecclesia Observe how this great Scholar abates the certainty of faith because he takes up the divinity of Scriptures upon trust from the saying of the Church those who build their faith purely on the divine word speak after another rate Junius reading the first chapter of St. John cried out in a kind of amazement Divinitatem argumenti authoritatem sentio and Reverend Calvin putting the question how we shall be perswaded that the Scriptures did flow forth from God answers as roundly as a man doth touching that which is obvious and before his senses Instit l. 1. c. 7. perinde est saith he ac si quis roget unde discemus lucem discernere à tenebris the Scripture reveals it self as the light doth and to the pure eye of faith it appears divine from its own innate excellency and so establishes the heart in its holy truth To conclude this point faith is a stable and firm thing but by the estimates and lives of men there seems to be but a very little of it in the world Did men as they profess firmly believe the Scriptures could they vilifie the commands of the great God as they do The injunctions of earthly Princes are not served so Would they slight that wonderful charter of grace and glory in the Gospel a Patent of petty dignities and possessions here below will be highly valued by them durst they sin as they do in the face of hell and wrath flashing out of the divine threatnings a Princes sword or Gibbet would cast them into a fit of trembling O how soon would the things of God cast the ballance in the heart and outweigh all the world if the Scriptures were indeed believed but there being in men only levis opinatio a light opinion rather then a solid faith touching the same there necessarily ensues a monstrous disproportion between their faith and their life Thirdly This belief must be explicite as to the fundamentals of Religion A meer implicite faith as to believe in the lump that all things contained in the holy Scriptures are true will not serve the turn In Coloss 2. v. 2. Non est divina sed belluina fides quae nuliam habet conceptionem five comprehensionem illarum rerum quae creduntur saith the excellent Davenant A meer implicite faith without understanding is a bruitish thing an explicite faith as to fundamentals is required this will appear by these ensuing considerations First A meer implicite faith if at any time might have passed for currant in the days before Christs Incarnation whilest religion was wrapt up in vails and shadows but even then faith in holy men was explicite according to the measure of divine light imparted unto them all along they looked to the Messiah the promised seed and probably in an obscure manner to his future sufferings Whilest Adam was in Innocency there was no promise of a Messiah no footstep of a sacrifice but as soon as man was fallen out came that first Gospel the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head Gen. 3.15 and sacrifices were set up without doubt not without Gods appointment for God had respect to Abels sacrifice which had it been a piece of will-worship could not have been and Abol offered it up by faith Heb. 11.4 which without a divine word moves not in the least measure These sacrifices were as it were visible Commentaries on that first Gospel and types of a suffering Messiah And if so and so by Gods own institution it is not at all probable that God should hide the sacred meaning thereof totally from the faith of the first believers Adam then as I conceive by the eyes of Faith saw the Messiah in that first Gospel and withall some glimmering of his sufferings in the sacrifices And if he saw it no doubt he did preach and reveal it to others Schola saerif Disp. 4 and probably as Franzius conceives in a solemn manner at the sacrifices Abel saith the Apostle by faith offered up a sacrifice to God not only by such a faith as did it in obedience to Gods command but by such a faith as through his own sacrifice did pierce to the antitype the great sacrifice of the Messiah De satisfact Christi l. 1. sect 5. Thus the learned Essenius cum sacrificia Veteris Testamenti fuerint typi sacrificii Christi ea sides intelligenda est quâ sacrificium illud refertur ad suum antitypum such a faith was proper to his sacrifice In Noahs sacrifice the Lord smelled a sweet savour or a savour of rest such as did saith one of the Rabbins make him ab irâ suâ quiescere rest from his anger Gen. 8.21 and therefore surely there was more in it then meer beasts and fowls Noahs faith fetched in him who was to give himself an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour Abraham saw Christs day that is his coming and suffering in the flesh John 8.56 a very great sight at that distance and no doubt the faithful Seer did not conceal it but tell his children and servants thereof for the glory of the Messiah his joy was too great to hold it in privately to himself and his zeal too hot to hide so much of heavenly glory Under the Levitical Law the Israelites were to lay their hands on the head of the sacrifice as it were to disburden themselves of sin and lay it off upon the sacrifice and by the offering up thereof they were to make an atonement or expiation The unbelievers among them understood the outward rite of the sacrifice and did the faithful ones see no more in it Could or did they imagine that a poor silly beast could stand under the weight of sin or that the blood of bulls or goats could take it away No surely their faith looked through the outward sacrifice to the Messiah for atonement and reconciliation In David the Evangelical day broke out more clearly O how much of Christ is there in the 110th Psalm there 's his kingdom and eternal priesthood there 's
of grace and breaths beams of light and utters sparkles of glory nothing but mysteries and rectitudes and words of eternal life ever came from him and to make these come home to thee he is an inward Ecclesiastes one who can unlock thy secrets and come into the midst of thee and there express himself in words of life and power and all the while his Majesty shall not swallow thee up He speaks through an humane nature and vail of flesh in rare condescension and compassion towards thy weakness Whilest faith is in the high praises of this great Prophet the heart cannot chuse but be upon the wheels ready to run to him and say speak Lord for thy servant heareth Secondly It doth it by humbling and softning the heart Before faith a man is in the ruff of pride and there 's no speaking to him his heart is as a stone or Adamant and beats off holy truths but after it the man becomes as a little child and Christ may say any thing to him his stony heart is turned into flesh and so made ready for God to be manifested in it Faith doth so meeken the heart that it will sit down at Christs feet and hear him even in his hardest Lectures Let Christ talk of racks and bloody persecutions for the Gospel and the believer will be ready to get up the cross on his back Let Christ preach of high and transcendent mysteries such as reason cannot fathom and the believer will subscribe in silence what ever reason mutter against it Secondly Faith having discipled the soul yields it up to Christ to be taught And because now he doth not teach in person as once in the days of his flesh faith yields up the soul to him to be taught by his spirit The discipled believer loves to stand as Adam in the wind of the day in the gales of the holy spirit And this will appear in two-things First Faith waits upon the Spirit in the Means and when the spirit comes in holy motions it welcomes him into the soul Faith waits upon the Spirit in the Means there it cries out as Elisha at Jordan where is the God of Elijah here 's the mantle but where 's the God here are the Scriptures but where 's the Spirit that endited them to make holy impressions and seal divine truths upon the heart here are the ordinances but oh for the moving of the waters awake O North wind and come thou South blow upon the garden that the spices may flow out And when the spirit comes in holy motions faith opens the everlasting doors and welcoms him in as Laban did Abrahams servant come in thou blessed of the Lord stand not only without in the Scripture-letter come in thou that comest in the name of the Lord. Take the throne of my heart and bid the world go down and sit at thy footstool Take the keys of the soul and unlock every faculty set up thy lamps in every dark corner and discover the accursed things there Speak O heavenly Rabbi speak in words of life and power and shew me the path of life and righteousness Secondly Faith is very chary and loth to lose the teaching spirit Like the Spouse in the Canticles it holds him and and will not let him go Cant. 3.4 This is to the believer as the apple of his eye he would not have a dust of earth fall into to lest it grieve and weep out some of the holy light and as the fire in the Temple it must not go out if there be but a live coal or single spark it must be brown up into a flame Holy motions are very precious to the believer as it were beams of heaven better in Faiths account then the great Sun which quickens the animal world and like so many good Angels sent from God to give the soul a visit rather then these should be violated and abused faith will offer all its worldly comforts as Lot his daughters to be defloured If the holy spirit depart faith writes scabbed upon all other things and the believer becomes as a dead man unable to breath in prayer or walk in holiness or live or have a being in the spiritual world The Sun is down and it is night with him the dew is off and his fleece dry the gales are wanting and he is at a stand in his voyage to heaven Thus faith yields up the soul to be taught by the spirit Secondly In and through Christ the Mediator faith yields up the soul to God to be taught by the spirit I say in and through Christ the Mediator Without a Mediator God will not speak to a sinful creature unless out of the fire in words of wrath like those at the last day Go thou cursed one If he speak and commune with us in words of peace and salvation it must be from the mercy-seat that is through Christ who is called Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or propitiatory Rom. 3.25 Hence Christ is called the wisdom of God because through him that wisdom doth manifest it self and as God speaks so faith hears and resigns both are in and through the Mediator I say in and through the Mediator faith yields up the soul to God to be taught by the spirit the very same teaching spirit as it was procured by the Mediator so it is given out by God Therefore faith for the teaching thereof resigns up the soul as to the Mediator the procurer so to God the donor of it And in this resignation faith climbs up to him by that noble Attribute of his infinite wisdom Are there transcendent mysteries in Scripture Faith will resign and cry out with Zophar Oh! that God would speak and shew me the secrets of wisdom Whilest the Scripture is in its hands it sighs and looks up for the key to unlock and shew forth this and that truth in its spiritual glory or at least in some such beams of it as it is capable of the Original Languages will not serve its turn without the Original Author nor the Learned Commentators without the great Interpreter that only wise God who endited the Scripture can illustrate the heart and whilest the believer reads the one he waits for the other Is there a practical case dubious and perplexed like an intricate Labyrinth or way-less wilderness and when the believer goes about to put all circumstances into the ballance doth he tremble and demurr like Origen at the Idol-incense and cannot be satisfied In such a case Faith runs and Esra-like hangs upon God for a right way the All-wise can make a way in the wilderness and guide thee with his eye saith Faith one cast or glance from his wisdom will disintricate thy doubts and make thy way plain before thee Doth the outward world grow stormy and tempestuous is the sky of the times overclouded with troubles and dangers faith stands in the posture of Jehoshaphat we know not what to do but our eyes are upon thee 2
willing and cries out Father thy wâ—ll be done even in the death of my darling lusts Christ died a violent death and sin must not dyâ— a natural one If it dye alone or of it self it is no sacrifice it must be cropt in the flower and stabbed at the heart and dye of its wounds the violence done to God and Christ and the Spirit must be upon it till it give up the ghost Christ died a tormenting death in pains and agonies and we must dye so to sin we must suffer in the flesh 1 Pet. 4.1 bleeding under sin and being sorrowful to the death of it Christ died a lingring death and so doth sin it doth not dye all at once but languishes by little and little the believer dies daily to sin The Colossians were dead Câ—l 3.3 and yet saith the Apostle mortisie your members v. 8. Mortification must be upon mortification because sin is long a dying the genius of faith is to have sin crucified as Christ was following his steps as much as may be Secondly He yields up his soul to Christ as the meritorious cause of mortification Christs death merited sins hence faith glories in the cross of Christ as in that whereby the world is crucified to the believer and he to the world Gal. 6.14 there it would hang up every lust as an accursed thing Faith lies at the bleeding wounds of Christ watching for the breathings of that spirit which can mortisie the deeds of the body waiting for that mind of Christ which can make us suffer in the fiesh that we may cease from sin Christ was crucified and the believer would have the old man crucified together he would dye with him as the graft doth with the stock There is a Popish fable that the angry Adriatick Sea was becalmed by one of the nails of Christs cross cast into it the moral is true the troubled sea of lust in our heart cannot be subdued but by the application of Christ death the winds and waves there obey no other voice but that of Christ crucified he yields up his soul to Christ as the royal worker of mortification When he sees his lusts as so many rebels rising up in arrns he flies to his soveraign Christ for a power to subdue them the high things and strong holds appearing in his understanding make him cry out Treason Treason the Jebusite is in the tower of David the fleshly wisdom hath got into the understanding O thou wisdom of God captivate and cast it down The Pagan lusts and Gentile-wills shewing themselves in the heart force him to break forth like the Psalmist O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance thy temple they have desiled cast them out O thou mighty Saviour that my soul may be a sanctuary for thy self When the battel is set before and behind corruptions surrounding and encompassing him his eyes are upon his Lord sitting above at the right hand of power till his enemies be made his footstool And as the believer yields up his foul to Christ for mortification of sin so also for vivisication of the soul And this in the very same respects First He yields up his soul to Christ as the grand pattern of vivisication the parallel is the Apostles own Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 Look what was done in the flesh of Christ in his corporeal resurrection that is done in the spirits of Christians in the spiritual resurrection there the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre here from the heart there the flesh of Christ was raised up by an Almighty power called by the Apostle the glory of the Father here the soul of the believer is raised up by the same power as appears Eph. 1.19 20. there after the corporceal resurrection Christ appeared in humane lineaments here after the spiritual resurrection the Christian appears in divine graces the genius of faith is to assimilate the Christian to Christ risen Secondly He yields up his soul to Christ as the meritorious cause of vivisication Christ merited all graces for us saith doth not dare to go immediately to God no not for holiness it self but it goes and sucks at the breasts of Christs humanity well knowing that all graces are from the spirit and the way of the spirit is by the blood as Tagmon Archbishop of Magdenburg took the last breath of his dying Master Wolfgang by applying mouth to mouth so faith applies its mouth as it were to the wounds of a dying Christ from thence to receive the spirit of all grace that love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness temperance as so many rivers of living water may flow in the heart to make glad the habitation of God therein that the holy spirit may be as it were the soul of the soul breathing in the believers prayers and shining on his Bible and melting in his charity and impowering in his infirmity and honey-dropping in his converses and being a Shechinah a presence and a glory in all his ways Thirdly He yields up his soul to Christ as the Royal Donor of all quickning graces Christ as a Priest merited all graces but as a King he gives them out unto us him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance Act. 5.31 and so to give all other graces A melting heart is but a word of power from him at Gods right hand an heavenly heart but a touch from him sitting in heaven every piece of holiness is a beam of glory from him meekness and mercy and obedience and patience are as so many pearls dropping from his crown all the sheddings of the holy spirit slow from him who is exalted above he ascended up that he might fill all things Eph. 4.10 that is all the spiritual world of believers with grace Faith therefore looks up for the sweet illapses of the spirit and waits for graces as so many golden apples dropping down from that tree of life which stands in the upper Paradise of God Secondly In and through the Mediator this resignation is made unto God it is God that sanctisieth God as the supream fountain of grace and in this resignation faith climbs up to him partly by the Attribute of free-grace cast thy burden upon the Lord saith the Psalmist Psal 55. 22. or as the Original imports omnia donabilia tua all that thou wouldest have given thee whatever thy want be mortifying grace or quickning grace faith hath an art to cast and unload all upon free-grace there being a famine of grace in lapsed nature faith brings out the empty vessel the soul void of self-worthiness and sets it under one ordinance or other waiting upon God till he rain down righteousness upon the soul This is the rain of liberalities as the Original is Psal 68.9 this faith waits for without money or price of its own
because God is love and grace free and partly by the Attribute of Almighty power sin is strong but not infinitely the Almighty who subdues all things to himself can easily subdue it The heart is a dead womb and not able to teem out the least particle of grace but the Almighty can quicken the dead and raise up a divine seed therein The fingers which made an Heaven and an Earth can make a new heart and a new spirit Faith takes hold on the power of God for the working sanctification in the heart Thirdly This resignation is made to the word and that upon a double account It is made to the word as the warrant of both the former resignations and made to the word as the engine in Gods hand for the working of sanctification it is made to the word as the warrant of both the former resignations The word is full of promises of mortifying and quickning grace and these promises stream out to us from the pure fountain of free-grace through the bleeding wounds of the Mediator and are all Yea and Amen Hence faith resigns to God and Christ for all sanctifying grace It is also made to the word as the engine in Gods hand for the working of sanctification The word is a mighty weapon able through Gods power to cast down the heights and strong holds of sin and an immortal seed able through Gods grace to quicken the heart and spring up into the new-creature Faith therefore resigns to it that the heart may be sanctified through the truth Thus far of the third thing resignation for sanctification Fourthly Faith resigns up the soul to be ruled as to its actings I say as to its actings That I may clearly distinguish it from the but now mentioned sanctification which consists in inward principles of grace And still to press in my old steps First This resignation is made to Jesus Christ the Mediator Faith translates the soul into the kingdom of Christ and loves to live no where else the world in its eyes is but a house of bondage but it loves to live in Christs dominions Where holiness is there 's the King of Saints where meekness and patience there 's the throne of the Lamb where righteousness there 's his Scepter where Gods will prevaileth there he sits in Power and Majesty at the last day sense will discover this great King Jesus coming in the clouds in power and glory But faith sees him here coming in state in every holy command and riding as it were on the wings of the wind in every motion of the holy spirit The posture of faith herein is like that of the Israelies when the pillar of cloud and fire went before them then they journied otherwise they staid in their place when the spirit and word of Christ goes before the believer faith follows after else it will not stir a foot out of its place it is really in the believers heart to be ruled by Christ in all things Take him in holy ordinances these saith faith are the throne of Christ here below in these he fits at the right hand of power here the believer waits to see the power and the glory as the man with the withered hand in stretching it forth waited for a power to restore it and as the blind man in his going and washing in Siloam waited for a power to recover his sight so the believer in every ordinance waits for the power of Christ if he break the rocky heart melt it into the divine will the believer cries out the Lord reigneth here is the day of power indeed Take him in the works of his calling and there he is ruled by Christ one would think the servant were only toiling and drudging in his servile employments but if he be a believer he is serving the Lord Christ Col. 3.24 and by a divine praerogative above other mens his deeds are wrought in God such was the posture of pious Musculus in the town-ditch as well as in the Pulpit Faith is such an engine as brings down the kingdom of Christ though not of this world into the meanest trades the believer acting therein as Peter let down his net at the command of Christ and therein as in his calling abiding with God which is more then the unbeliever doth under divine ordinances nay take him even in natural actions the believer when himself cats and drinks and sees and hears and speaks and sleeps and wakes and walks after another rate then other men doing all under the Law of Christ that 's a knife at his throat a covering to his eyes a stopper to his cars a bridle on his lips when he sleepeth that keeps him when he waketh that talks with him when he walketh that leads him the kingdom of heaven which is not meat or drink or any such thing is by faith brought down into all these The genius of faith is to be ruled by Christ in all things Secondly This resignation in and through the Mediator is made to God I say in and through the Mediator because without him we can expect to be ruled by God in no other way then by the iron rod of his power and justice dashing us in pieces to all eternity but in and through him the believer may and doth yield up himself to God to be ruled And here he makes use of two Attributes Gods soveraignty and Gods holiness God is the supream Lord and must be obeyed he is the holy one and must be sanctified in each command the beams of his majesty and holiness sparkle out and these faith takes in to melt the heart into a compliance with the divine will Plato being asked by one of his Scholars how long his precepts were to be obeyed answered Donec in terris apparuerit sacratior aliquis qui sontem veritatis aperiat the believer desires to be ruled by God because an higher and holier cannot come Thirdly This resignation is made to the word Ask a believer how he knows himself to be where he would be in the dominions of God and Christ his answer will be I know it by the command in the word and in the command his faith eyes two things the truth of the command and the soveraignty his faith eyes the truth of it the command is true as coming from God himself and being the very counterpane of the holiness in his heart This is the will of God even your sanctification saith St. Paul 1 Thess 4.3 Gods will is in himself but the command is the counterpane of it thy word is true from the beginning saith the Psalmist Psal 109.160 or as the Original is the head of thy word is truth the body of the command in Scripture answers to the head of it in the holy will of God Faith looks on the command as issuing out of the very heart of God and exactly agreeing thereunto and upon this account resign to it as to the good and acceptable will of God Again
instinct knows this is good for such a condition and that for another and when he comes to that promise I will be thy God he saith this is the universal Medicine and good for all things as infinite a sea as Gods grace is as vast a treasure as Christs merits the believer cannot tell how to climb up to these unless he have somewhat of a promise to set his faith upon if there be but an half-promise faith will ascend up by it when God saith seek righteousness seek meekness it may be you shall be hid in the day of the Lords anger Zeph. 2.3 faith will hang upon a may be but where there is nothing at all of a promise faith does not cannot tell how to approach for the unpromised thing The Perfectionists fay that sinless perfection is attainable in this life Joseph is yet alive perfection of life figured by Joseph may be found so thinks a Learned Doctor My yoke is easie said Christ and from thence Bellarmine concludes Legem Dei possibilem esse renatis imo facilem observatu but alass these are but dreams and not acts of faith It s true the believer groaning under the burden of sin wishes nothing more then sinless perfection he works he walks he prays he weeps he runs he strives but after all he may not believe sinless perfection attainable here not but that the grace of God in Christ is sufficient to effect it but there is no channel for such a grace to run in no promise in all the word to bottom such a persuasion upon there is a promise for the subduing of iniquity but not for the annihilating it a promise that sin shall not reign in us but none that it shall not be therefore the believer would not seek for that in himself which is only found in Christ nor for that on earth which is reserved for heaven that mercy or comfort which is not let down in the promise faith doth not expect or look for Trubern a German Divine on his deathbed seeking comfort spake thus textum textum volo let me have the text the text well knowing that comfort streams out in the promises the believer is ever for one promise or other to give advantage to his faith in its ascension to God for mercy and comfort Fourthly This resignation is a voluntary act It hath been disputed between Romanists and Protestants where the seat of faith is whether in the Vnderstanding only or in the Will also the Apostle clearly determines it with the heart man believeth Rom. 10.10 the heart includeth both faculties ad esse fidei virtutis concurrit actus rationis simul voluntatis quod benè innuit Apostolus in ipsâ notifieatione fidei cum dicit fidem esse substantiam rerum sperandarum argumentum non apparentium tangens quod est in eâ cognitionis quod est assectionis saith Bonaventure the assent of faith is in the Understanding but the resignation is in the Will credere est consentire consensio autem volentis est saith St. Austin We read in Scripture of faith unfeigned and sincerity is in the Will of the obedience of faith and obedience is in the Will of leaning rolling resting casting our selves upon God and all these are in the Will all the resignations which the believer makes are acts of his Will if he resign to the Promises and through them to the meriting Mediator and through him to the free-grace of God this recumbency or fiducialness is in his Will if he resign to the commands and through them to the kingdom of the Mediator and through him to the holiness of God this obediential frame is in his Will if he resign for instruction to the Word and through it to the great Prophet and through him to the wisdom of God this docibleness this tender holy flesh is in his Will he would have salvation coming in a way of grace and grace flowing through the Mediator Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ for a teacher and ruler as well as for a Saviour and all this is his choice 'T is not a meer velleity or effluvium of a light desire like that of Balaam let me dye the death of the righteous but an act of his Will 't is not a mood or hot sit of devotion such as falls on men under warming and awakening ordinances but a deliberate act 't is not a constraint or piece of servility such as men usually have in sick and dying hours when they are rolling off from this world and upon the brink of eternity with a prospect of heaven and hell before them but it is a true and a free-will cordially and freely offering up the soul to the terms and methods of salvation in the Gospel Fifthly This resignation is made in Humility The believer like his father Abraham is called to Gods foot there to lye in the lowest posture of a sinful creature in an humble docibleness he lyes at the foot of Gods wisdom waiting as they that watch for the morning till the holy irradiations make the day dawn and the day-star arise in the heart in an obediential frame he lyes at the foot of Gods holiness crying out like Paul struck down to the earth Lord what wilt thou have me to do and in a fiducial recumbency he lies at the foot of Gods grace as a forlorn beggar full of fores and extremities waiting if free-grace will take him in and like the good Samaritane bind up his wounds pouring in the oyl and wine of mercy into his heart The men among the Israelites could not enter into the Land of promise but the little ones did so the mystery is the Christians though the history be theirs the men among us such as can few sig-leaves together and cloath themselves such as can feed themselves at home and keep house upon their own reason such as are Lords of their own actions coming and going ad placitum these do not believe nor enter into the promises of the Gospel but the little ones who cannot dress themselves but as free-grace swadles and wraps them up in Christs righteousness nor feed themselves unless free-grace pluck out the breast and milk out instruction nor rule themselves or go alone but as free-grace takes them by the hand and leads them in holy ways these are they that believe and enter into rest hence our Saviour saith Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven Mat. 18.3 The proud man will not suffer grace to reign in or over him but the believer is as a little child ruleable by all the will of God humbly submitting to all the methods of salvation in the Gospel To shut up this discourse about the Adjuncts of faith I shall only add a caution or two When I say that all true believers do thus resign I mean not that all have the same formal notions or expressions but the same faith and resignation for the substance of
but the believer for the Paradise of God The Sensualist swills in brutish pleasures and sports himself with the volatile joyes of the flesh but the believer is upon the wing after the joyes of the spirit and the pure rivers of pleasure above In a word faith is virtually all the resignations which are in intellectual humiliations inward mortifications and outward martyrdomes In intellectual humiliations faith makes reason though a Queen in her own dominions come down and sit at the foot of revelation In inward mortifications faith makes the regnant lust come off from the throne of the heart and bids the believer as Joshua his Captains put his feet on the neck of his lust In outward martyrdomes faith hath empowred men to kiss the stake and embrace the flames and cry out as the blessed Martyr did welcome sweet cross of Christ and which is the crown of all the rest in all these resignations faith ventures all upon the bare word of God and desires no better security then that for all its expectations Sixthly That faith stands in resignation may appear from the scope of Religion It is the very center of all Divinity and grand axiom therein that the creature is to be abased and God exalted no flesh must glory in it self but in the Lord all pride must be stained and boasting cut off that God may be all in all and the creature nothing Now nothing is nor can be more accommodate to this Central Divinity then faith considered under the notion of resignation which I shall shew in the following particulars First This doth exceedingly abase the creature Resignation is the lowest posture of a creature and so the fittest to take in all those graces which the Gospel hath entailed on believers Would you have adoption from God leave thine own kindred and thy fathers house stand not upon thy birth-right or parentage which in a child of wrath such as thou art by nature is as base and low as hell it self go forth to Christ the natural son of God that thou mayest be an adopted one Would you have pardon and justification stay not at home in thine own righteousness and repentant tears these will not be habitable when God comes in the pure glory of his justice and holiness go out and put on the glorious righteousness of Christ go out and lye down at the door of the pardon-office I I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake saith God Isa 43.25 Would you have sanctifying graces thine own Will cannot teem them out thine own power cannot form them Albertus Magnus the Philosopher spent fifty years in making the Statue of a man so as that with Engines it could speak articulately but when all was done it was but a poor dead thing Shouldest thou live the age of Methuselah and all the while in the artifice of thy reason and power of thy will labour to forge out true holinss it would be at last but an umbra a dead shadow of grace though it might speak fairly in the way of notions and gifts yet it would be without the heavenly life and vitality thou must therefore yield up thy self to Jesus Christ that his spirit may come upon thee and form the new-creature in thee the sum of all is this put off thy ornaments that God may know what to do unto thee yield resign be in the lowest posture of a creature that all the Evangelical graces may be thine own Secondly This doth highly exalt God and that in several respects First It exalts the mercy of God Now it appears that mercy in its proposals of salvation comes down to the very lowest terms it will adopt justifie and sanctifie an yielding sinner and how can it possibly go lower should he adopt such as will not suffer him to draw his picture upon their hearts when Thomas Arundel was for his Martial merits made Earl of the Empire Queen Elizabeth said that her sheep should not be stamped alieno stigmate with another mans mark as long as men will keep the worlds and Satans mark upon them God cannot tell how to call them sons can he justifie the ungodly to justifie the ungodly repenting and resigning is his infinite grace but to justifie them hardning and rebelling is impossible to his holiness should be count them pure with the wicked balances Mic. 6.11 every unresigned sinner hath a wicked balance in his heart which makes as if a little sinful pleasure did outweigh God himself and can he justifie such wicked ones should the sanctifying spirit with all its train of graces come and dwell in the unclean stable of indulged lusts Christ the holy one of God was in his admirable humility in a stable of beasts but in a stable of indulged lusts he cannot be he dwells in the heart by faith that is in the resigning heart and it cannot be otherwise Mercy it self if it comport with the justice and holiness of God cannot make lower terms then to save the yielding sinner Secondly It exalts the wisdom of God He hath so admirably contrived the way of salvation that mercy shall stoop to the lowest terms and the creature take it in the lowest posture that so mercy might sit in majesty and save in state Princes use in their acts of mercy to give an allay of Majesty such as may stand with their honour Solomon will pardon Adonijah but he must be a worthy man or as the Original is a son of virtue 1 Kings 1.52 King Henry the fourth of France would have freely pardoned Birone but then he must make an ingenious confession of the treason which he neglecting to do in time lost his head The great God gives out mercy to poor sinners but they must take it upon the knee in a bending and resigning posture such as is congruous to so infinite a Majesty they must be put into self-emptying and self-annihilating thoughts as Moses into the clift of the rock while the glory of free-grace passes before them Thirdly It exalts the veracity of God The believer resigns up his soul himself his happiness his all upon the meer word of God giving him the glory of his truth in every tittle What Peter said to Christ when he bad him let down his net Master we have toiled all night and have taken nothing yet at thy word I will let down the net Luke 5.5 that saith the believer unto God Lord I am toiling in the dark under sin and wrath but at thy word I will cast my self upon free-grace I am labouring under spiritual wants and necessities but at thy word I will repair to the great treasures of grace in Christ still the hangs upon a word its true he resigns up himself to Christ and free-grace but his warrant for doing so is a meer word how doth he know that the infinite Ocean of mercy whose effluxes are free will flow out to sinful men how doth he know that the Son of God was incarnate and suffered
upon God in the 119 Psal thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts but O that my wayes were directed to do so ver 4 5. I will keep thy statutes but O forsake me not utterly ver 8. with my whole heart have I sought thee but O let me not wander from thy commandements ver 10. I will run the way of thy commandements but do thou enlarge my heart ver 32. I love thy precepts but quicken me O Lord according to thy loving kindness ver 159. I have chosen thy precepts O let thine hand help me ver 173. how working is David and how depending how sweetly do mans obedience and Gods influence accord together this a believer practically understands and none but he whilest others labour to fathome it by speculation the mystery is too deep for them but the believer hath it practically and in experience every day As to spiritual extractions the believer is very sagacious Chymists by racking and torturing of nature have forced her to a confession of many secrets and choice mysteries which made Paracelsus so triumph over Galen vaunting proudly that the least hair of his head had more learning then all the Vniversities besides The believer is the best of Chymists no extractions are like those of faith he extracts heaven out of earth could a man extract gold out of base metals it would be but earth out of earth purer out of grosser but the believer extracts heaven out of earth As Jacob saw more then meer Esau he saw Gods face in Esaus so the believer sees more then the meer creature-comfort he sees the goodness of God in it which is the sweetness of all Carnal men are content with the bulk and gross matter of an earthly blessing but the believer draws out the spirits and quintescence thereof that is the love of God without which oil and wine and corn and all other earthly things are but a caput mortuum a piece of dross and dead mattor in his eyes earthly things are transient and perishing in themselves but he hath an art to melt them down by charity into a fixed condition though he cannot say his house yet he can his charity shall continue for ever Silver and gold will not go in speeie in the upper world but he knows how by the poor which are Christs bankers to return them thither for everlasting habitations given in exchange by free-grace Again he extracts good out of evil Carnal men see nothing in affliction but a lump of sorrow but the believer knows that there is a blessing in it the sharpness of it may let out his corruption the suddenness of it may alarum his spiritual watch the bitterness of it may wean him from the breast of the creature the weight of it may try the back of his faith and patience it is no longer meer trouble but made out into fans to unchaff him of his vanity into furnaces to resine his golden graces into moulds to cast him into the image of a meek suffering Christ into spiritual wings to elevate the soul in devotions and heavenly affections towards the everlasting rest which is above much of the love and faithfulness of God is to be seen in it which made Munster sick of the pestilence to shew the ulcers and plague-tokens on his arm ut armillas preciosas Christi gemmas as the bracelets and rich jewels of Christ such noble extractions can faith make out of sore afflictions as if they were the only love-tokens to feal up a son of God according to that old saying Qui excipitur à numero flagellatorum excipitur à numero siliorum Again he extracts strength out of weakness Satans shocks and the fluxes of inward corruption may make him weak and ready to perish but his faith tells him that the power of God which can do all things is perfected in weakness and the weakness of man under which he groans is a capacity for that power to shew forth it self in when our power is gone there is room for Gods when there is no might he increaseth strength as it was in Christ the weakness the humane flesh was anointed with the divinity so it is in the believer the weakness the humane frailty is anointed with the power of grace when he is weak in himself then he is strong in God when weak in the flesh then strong in the spirit The Psalmist hath some Psalms upon Machalath that is upon instruments Musical say some but upon infirmity say others the believer is able to glory and make Musick over his weaknesses because his faith can fetch down the power of God upon him wait on the Lord and he shall strengthen thine heart Psal 27.14 as faith goes up so power comes down hence the believer out of weakness is made strong as the Apostle expresses it Heb. 11.34 Again he extracts grace out of unworthiness well knowing that the way of grace is to move it self into act from our unworthiness a notable instance whereof we have Hos 2.13 14. she went after her lovers and forgate me saith the Lord therefore behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her as if he had said she is idolatrous therefore behold I will be gracious Oh what a stupendious therefore is here deservedly is it followed with a behold a note of admiration So wonderful it is that some Learned men among the Papists not understanding how such a connection could possibly be have thought that it referrs not to that which immediately went before but to some precedent words about the beginning of the Chapter a parallel place to this we have Isa 57.17 18. he went on frowardly in the way of his heart I have seen his wayes and will heal him Oh! what strange grace is here one would have thought he would have said he went on frowardly I have seen his wayes and will damn him but it is I have seen his wayes and will heal him Some Jewish Commentators gloss it thus I have seen his repenting wayes and will heal him I suppose not understanding how grace should immediately follow upon perversness but the believer knows that this is the method of grace and therefore by an holy art presses for it even from his own unworthiness Our Saviour Christ calls the Canaanitish woman crying out for mercy no better then dog Math. 15.26 a word of reproach such as the proud Jews put on all the Gentiles such as made the Saracens revolt from the Emperour Heraclius his army and set up for themselves under their Captain Mahomet but see how admirably her faith gathers upon him and even from that word presses for mercy truth Lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their Masters table ver 27. ipsum Dominum in verbis capit she takes the Lord in his own words saith Ferus proving her title to the crumbs from her being a dog Holy David prayes O Lord pardon mine iniquity for
let down into his heart and another all is drawn up into heaven again His Evidences may be blurred Satan may hold up his pardoned Sins as it were in their old guilt the Arrows of God may stick fast in him and bring qualms and sick-fits upon his Conscience But at that day his Comforts shall be unvariable a nightless Day and a cloudless Horizon an eternal feast upon God and all things in him his Evidences all clear and after but this once shewing forth an everlasting possession of the expected Happiness The Accuser Satan shall be struck dumb at the blessed sentence of pardon and acceptance pronounced by God before Men and Angels God shall never frown or wound him any more but wrap him up in the arms of endless love and joy This will be a day of refreshing indeed Thus much of the perfection of this holy fruit Fifthly The last thing is the excellency of it God himself writes upon the Justified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Blessed one Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Pal. 32.1 or as the original Blessednesses is he there is not one single Happiness but a cluster of Beatitudes in this estate Some of these I shall gather off from this Vine First The Justified person hath God for his God these two I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and I will be their God stand in conjunction in the Covenant of Grace Hebr. 8.10 and 12 verses God say the Jewish Rabbins hath the key of the Womb the key of the Grave the key of the Rain and the key of the Heart all that is in the Creation is at his dispose The Justified man hath as I may say a key into God himself He may unlock infinite Treasures and say These everlasting Arms which bear up the World are mine for protection These All-seeing Eyes which guide every wheel in Nature are mine for direction Those immense Bowels which cover all the Creation embrace and sold me up in special Love Those two all-comprizing words My God are in truth utterable by none but such as he is God is called the God of Abraham Isaack and Jacob. Cujus omnes gentes sunt quasi trium hominum Deus esset saith St. Austine as if the Great Lord of all things were appropriated to those three Men. Such honour have all Justified ones God is their own and to make this sure they have bonds and bills under Gods own hand they can in one Promise shew a title to his Power and in another to his Mercy and in a third to his Wisdom and in that I will be their God They can lay a just claim to all that is in him which what it amounts unto is more than the tongue of Men and Angels can express Secondly The Justified person hath Christ for his own When the covetous King of Egypt built an house for his great Treasures the cunning Architect left a loose Stone in the building that so he might have free access thereinto What entrance he had by craft into the Egyptian Treasures that Justified persons have by a fair grant into all the unsearchable riches of Christ Merit Spirit Life Death Righteousness Redemption Fulness Glory all that is in Christ is their own If his Righteousness can stand before God so will they If his Blood can wash away sin they shall be without spot or wrinckle at the Great day If his glorious over-measure of the Spirit cannot fail no more will their supplies of Grace If he ascended up into Heaven it was to prepare a place for them If he make Intercession above they must have access to the Throne of Grace If he sit at the Right-hand of Power and Majesty all their enemies must be made their foot-stool Oh! infinite enjoyment Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither can it enter into mans heart what the total sum of this is Thirdly The Justified man hath a rare priviledge in his Holy duties He hath assistance from access unto and acceptance with the great God in these He hath assistance from him Whilest he stands offering up holy Services fire comes down from heaven upon the Sacrifice The Holy Spirit inflames his heart towards God opening it in Hearing melting it in Alms and pouring it out in Prayer So that in some sence he offers up his Duties as Christ did himself through the eternal Spirit enlivening and impowering him thereunto His voyage to Heaven lies through a tract of various Duties but it never fares with him in these as it did with Sir Hugh Willoughby in his Voyage to Moscovy in which he was by extream Frosts frozen to death The warm influences of Grace keep him from freezing in this divine enterprize His heart which seeks the Lord in his waies shall live and to make it sure our Saviour saies expresly because I live ye shall live also Joh. 14.19 His life is hid with Christ As long as Christ the Head is alive above the Members below shall never fail of quickening grace in their addresses to God Again he hath access unto God in them A man under guilt cannot approach unto God no more than fallen Origen casting his eye upon that of the Psalmist What but thou to do to declare my Word could tell how to Preach but the Justified man may draw near unto him because his heart is sprinckled from an evil Conscience The guilt which would have made him shie of God is done away in Christs blood Whilst others are but in the outward Court in the opus operatum the work done he may enter into the Holy of Holies into communion with God the Holy Spirit conducts him thither through the vail of Christs flesh Moreover which is the crown of all he hath acceptance with God God had respect to Abel and to his offering Gen. 4.4 such a respect as to bear witness to his righteousness by some visible sign as fire from heaven consuming the Sacrifice The justified man is in his measure as Daniel a man of Desires and as the Blessed Virgin graced or highly favoured His Prayers make melody in heaven his Alms are the savour of a sweet-smell he doth not lose so much as a cup of cold water nor shut a door of sense against an approaching Temptation in vain There is a well-pleasingness in all his Services as being ushered forth from the heart into the hand of the Mediatour and there richly perfuned for the Father though as they lie in our hearts there be much smoak and mixture of weakness in them yet as they are in the hand of Christ they are glorified duties acceptable to God through Jesus Christ Fourthly The Justified man hath more of the sweetness of life and its outward Comforts than others He hath more of the sweetness of life than others The Jewish Doctours treating about the estimation of Persons mentioned Levit. 27. say That if a man be adjudged to death for his transgression he is not to be valued
Head and Advocate and will not cannot condemn the Believer being a piece of himself standing in his image and righteousness Sin and Satan have nothing at all to say against him The Law cannot object the breach of the least jot or tittle he comes to the Judgment only to be absolved before Men and Angels and after an Enge of praise to enter into the joy of his Lord which is an happiness beyond all expression CHAP. VIII Of Adoption the third fruit of Faith the peculiar Priviledg of sound Believers The Excellency thereof demonstrated under several Considerations THus far of the second fruit of Faith being Justification The next fruit thereof is Adoption Justification and Adoption are twin-Graces brought forth by Faith at once only in order of nature Justification goes first and then follows Adoption as presupposing the other hence the new name is said to be written in the white stone Rev. 2.17 Alexander the Great Conqueror of the World was by the flattering Oracle saluted as a Son of Jupiter but the Believer who overcomes the World in a more noble Spiritual way is by the true Oracle stiled a Son of God As many as received him to them he gave power to become the Sons of God Joh. 1.12 The Believer in the instant of believing is no longer a meer Son of Adam but a Son of God he is in unity with the natural Son of God and so becomes an Adopted one The Human nature is in the natural Son by Hypostatical union and so is taken into the natural Sonship and the Believer is in him by a Mystical union and so becomes a Son by Adoption Neither is this a meer empty title He is born not of blood in a way of carnal Generation not of the will of the flesh in a way of Concupiscence not of the will of man in the way of Moral Virtues and Excellencies but he is born of God he is one of the seed-Royal of Heaven the blood of God runs in his Conscience a Divine Spirit breaths in him Christ is formed in his heart and that in the very same manner as he was in the Womb that is by the overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost Nay further as Aquinas observes Tertia pars Quest 23. Art 2. Filiatio Adoptiva est quaedam similitudo filiationis aeternae Adoptive Sonship is a shadow of the eternal one The natural Son is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or brightness of his Father and in the Adopted there is a splendor of Grace resembling God in a measure The natural Son was begotten from Eternity and is still a begetting and in the Adopted the holy thing is begotten And yet in respect of the successive supplies of Grace afforded for its preservation it is as it were still a begetting hence the Adopted Son as well as the Natural abides for ever Joh. 8.35 The Natural Son is the image of Gods Nature and the Adopted the image of his Will Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 The Excellencies of this Priviledg are unutterable I shall express them only in some Considerations First Adoption is a very glorious thing it redounds to the glory of Free-grace and puts a lustre upon the Believer it redounds to the glory of Free-grace Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God 1 Joh. 3.1 That the indefectible God who hath a Son of his own lying in his bosom as an eternal joy should Adopt that the great Creator who as such hath all possible right to his Creature should Adopt that the Immortal One to whom by reason of his Immortality there can be no succession should yet Adopt that such a Majesty as he is should Adopt such as we are worms and sinful dust and Adopt us to such an Inheritance as Heaven is and by putting a new nature into us make us meet for the same is stupendious and wonderful beyond expression Such Considerations as these made the great School-man Durandus as Medina relates affirm That God did not Adopt properly but Secundum Translationem in a Metaphorical way But to pass that these things signally demonstrate that Divine Adoption is full of rich Grace and in a transcendent manner above Humane Moreover Adoption puts a lustre upon the Believer such as is not to be found upon the Princes and Potentates of the Earth Par. Medulla hist The proud Sultan Achmet used in his Letters to arrogate these high Titles to himself I Achmet head of Prophets Emperour of Emperours Lord of Europe Asia and Africa Lord of the White Black and Red Seas subjoining a long Enumeration of all the Provinces under him But to be a Son of God is incomparably more than all these All that train of Titles whereby Potentates spread out their Glory is fumus seculi the smoke of this lower World and glitters only in the eyes of flesh and blood but Adoption is radius Caeli a ray of Heavenly Glory and makes the Believer shine to the eyes of Angels who as they rejoice over a repenting Sinner cannot but wonder to see such an one transfigured into a Son of God Nay Adoption puts such a glory upon the Believer as was not upon Adam in Paradise Adam was a Son of God only by Creation but the Believer is one by Mystical Union and Communion with Christ the Natural Son hence Christ calls him Brother Heb. 2.11 a Compellation not used to Angels and he is one of the first-born Heb. 12.23 a title in an eminent way given to Christ Secondly Adoption carries with it an excellent spirit of Prayer Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba father Gal. 4.6 This praying Spirit is the breath of the New-creature and as much excels all meer modes and gifts of Prayer as a pair of natural Lungs doth artificial ones others may pray artificially and as it were mechanically but the Adopted man prays naturally without this Spirit all words and expressions in Prayer are but poor low things like the Vrim and Thummim made under the second Temple by which the Jews could not tell how to ask counsel of God because the holy Spirit was not present with it In the Adopted that Spirit makes the Prayer issue forth with life and power when the Blood and Merits of Christ plead above and the holy Spirit makes intercession in the heart for the same blessings there is such a Harmony that the Almighty sloops and bows down his car to it Thus the sweet Singer In waiting I waited for the Lord and he enclined unto me and beard my cry Psal 40.1 God himself enclines and stoops down at the Prayer of Faith Vacula Pater that little word Father spoken in the heart is more than all the Eloquence of Cicero and Demosthenes Com. in Gal. cap. 4. saith Luther No sooner doth the Child of Grace cry but God says
Soul by Faith doth by little and little work out and extirpate Sin as the day breaks upon the Heart darkness goes off as Holiness flows in Corruption departs the more of Heaven is there the less of Earth Thirdly Faith discovers the great evil of Original Sin and so raises up an hatred against it and hatred is a murderer and would if it could annihilate its opposite Faith shews it to be an All-evil a Mother of abominations Some particular Sins are such monsters in Morality that when viewed only in the light of Nature they appear very odious such was the cruelty of Nero Effeminacy of Sardanapalus and the like much more odious when inspected by the light of Faith must that appear which is All-sin in one a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or universal Seminary of iniquity Anthony holding Caesars bloody Coat up to the People moved them against the Conspirators Faith holding up the Murders Adulteries Blasphemies Villanies in the World unto the Believers eyes stirs his Heart against the venemous root of all these Faith shews it to be an universal evil all over the Soul breaking forth like the boyls of Egypt upon man and upon beast upon the intellective and sensitive faculties and all over the Believers duties lying as the locusts there upon every herb and green thing upon the verdure and glory of every good work it is a blemish in the Believers eye a plague in his Heart an ataxy in his Affections a damp on his Prayers a cooler to his Charity and Zeal and a dead fly in all the precious Oyntment of his duties and good works Faith shews it to be an utter enemy to God Antichrist-like opposing every appearance of him in the Heart quenching every good motion trampling on every holy beam slighting at the two great periods of Mankind Heaven and Hell and jeering at that holiness and iniquity which lead thither Faith shews it to be an evil always present the Believer shakes himself and it adhers flys and it encompasses mortifies and it lives prays weeps sweats and fights and yet the Canaanite is in the land like a living man chained to a dead he carries about his own loathsomness a body of death all his days this cleaves to him as the blackness to the Ethiopian and as the fretting spreading Leprofie to the house after all his washing and scraping of himself it will yet be in him till death dissolve him into dust Such representations as these made by Faith fill the Believer with shame and self-abhorrency and raise up in him an irreconcileable hatred against it Fourthly Faith so far as it is acted though it make not a total riddance of it doth yet imprison it that it cannot go at large and riot in scandalous Sins No nor steal out in an evil thought but it will be arrested in its passage to the Will for a consent as it was Gods caution beware that there be not a thought in thy Belial-heart against Charity Deut. 15.9 So it is Faiths endeavour to stop corruption even in a thought the flesh is still a lusting and would have one piece of forbidden fruit or other in its mouth but Faith opposes and would if it could leave nothing of it to breath in the Believer This is that the Scripture calls The crucifying of the old man Faith arraigns the old man as the Arch-malefactor in the World condemns him as worthy to die strips him of his veils and false coverings and by holy restraints nails him to the Cross that unless in a slumber of Faith he cannot move or stir himself but dies away by little and little As the light of Nature being imprisoned in unrighteousness as the Apostle speaks Rom. 1.18 is every day exhausted and weakned so the corruption of Nature being thus restrained by Faith gradually loses its life and vigor Martinus Polonus tels of a terrible Dragon at Rome who killed many daily with his poysonous breath but was at last shut up with Brasen gates through the Prayers of Sylvester Bishop there Were this Fable true Faith doth a nobler work in restraining the inward Serpent of corruption whose deadly poyson hath spread it self over all Men and is eternally fatal to all but Believers To conclude In all this Faith applies it self to a Crucified Christ from thence it fetches its pattern As the pure flesh of Christ upon which as an expiatory Sacrifice the Sin of the World was laid suffered on the Cross so the corrupt flesh of Man unto which as the universal Seminary the Sin of the World may be justly imputed must suffer also Hence Saint Peter 1 Pet. 4.1 From the suffering of Christ in the flesh exhorts Believers to suffer in their corrupt flesh ceasing from Sin and from thence it derives a spirit for the work Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit on the Cross and the Believer through the Spirit of Christ offers up his corrupt self to be crucified Hence St. Paul Rom. 6.6 saith Our old man is crucified with him that is by a secret virtue drawn from his Cross Thus far of this Fundamental Mortification I now come to particular Sins which are but the foul issues of Original breaking forth in this or that as temper education place custom or other accidents give vent thereunto these also doth Faith mortifie and that in some such way as this First Faith doth restrain the outward acts of Sin there may be many restraints in which yet there is nothing of Mortification one Sin may restrain another Vitia inter se contraria pugnant in which case Satan casts out Satan a predominant lust its opposite The fiery Law with its threats may meet a man in his perverse way as the Angel with his drawn Sword did Balaam and turn him back from committing the act nevertheless the unchanged Heart hankers and inwardly mourns after it as Phaltiel did after Michal when she was forced away from him and which is a better restraint because meerly from an in ward principle Moral Virtue may hold him back from it as it did Abimelech from Sarah yet this restraint is but partial only from outward Sins of shame and withal selfish aiming at no higher thing than repute and self-excellency But Faith restrains upon higher and nobler Motives speaking to the temptation as Joseph to his Mistress How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God May I break his Law which is more than the Interdicts of all the Princes and Potentates of the World or stain his glory which is more precious than the light of the Sun Moon and Stars or trample on that precious Blood which paid my ransom from Hell and Death or grieve away that Spirit which is the life of all my Graces and Comforts or pollute this Heart which may be a Temple or Tabernacle for the Holy One to dwell in or run my self again into the pangs of the New Birth and forget the wormwood and gall of my old Sins and eclypse the light
is express in it The righteousness of God is upon them that believe Rom. 3.22 All that believe are justified Act. 13.39 And we have believed that we might be justified Gal. 2.16 And Justification is in order before Sanctification I suppose the Holy Spirit with its Graces will not dwell in an unreconciled Soul Under the Law in cleansing the Leper first the Priest put the blood on him and then the holy oyl upon the place where the blood was Levit. 14.14 17. The Believer first in order hath the atoning Blood put on him and then the holy Unction of the Spirit According to this order Faith is first of all But if Faith and all other Graces are infused at once and together then either they are infused before Justification and so Sanctification is before Justification or else after it and so Justification is before Faith Fifthly This way there will be a congruity between the old Creatiowand the new In the old Light was the first-born of the Creation and then the other parts of the World were made in the new the first thing is the light of Faith and then follow those Graces which make up the New Creature Beholding as in a glass the glory of God we are changed into his image 2 Cor. 3.16 First the eye of Faith is opened and then the Image of God drawn on the Soul this congruity is the rather to be minded because the Apostle speaking of the Creation of Faith doth it with an allusion to the Creation of Light God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 As if he had said Light in the old Creation and Faith in the new answer one to another Sixthly This way there will be a congruity between Christ formed in the womb and Christ formed in the bea rt The blessed Virgin first believed and then Christ was formed in her Womb Concetio Christi facta fuit simul ac Maria in verba Angeli consentiens dixit Ecce ancilla Domini De Incarnat lib. 2. Quest 7. siat mihi secundum verbum tuum Luk. 1.38 saith Zanchy No sooner did she say an Amen of Faith to the Promise but Christ was conceived in her therefore after her Faith the Angel immediately departed from her as having his errand already dispatched answerably the Christian first believes and then Christ is formed in him in all those sanctifying Graces which make up the holy Image of Christ The Apostles expressing those Graces under the notion of forming Christ in us Gal. 4.19 seems to hint out this Congruity Seventhly This way there will be a Congruity between the being of these Graces and the acting of them whilest both proceed from Faith depending upon Christ the head of Grace The Believers life is in Scripture called a life of Faith not as if there were not Love Meekness Obedience Patience with all the other Graces in him but because Faith is the grand principle which moves every one of them Faith worketh by love saith the Apostle Gal. 5.6 and so it worketh by Meekness Obedience Patience and all other Graces being as it were blood and spirits running in every part of the New Creature All Graces are set a working by Faith and if they also receive their being through it there is a Congruity between their being and working Upon these Congruities I take it that Faith is first in order and then other Graces As to the actual exercise of Graces It is Faith which sets them all a working To this purpose it is observable That all the worthy acts of Grace mentioned in the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews are there ascribed to Faith so is Abels excellent Sacrifice Enochs walking with God Noahs holy fear of the deluge Abrahams obedience in leaving his Country Moses 's self-denial as to the Egyptian Court The valour of some Worthies in subduing Kingdoms and the patience of others in suffering torments for the truth The reason of which is because Faith is the first mover which sets all other Graces a-moving the General under whose conduct all Graces come forth in their courses therfore the honour of all is devolved upon it Now how Faith sets other Graces a-working I shall first shew in a general way common to all of them and then more particularly with respect to some special Graces In general Faith sets other Graces in motion by such ways as these First It looks on the Command which in Scripture calls for these Graces as the very Will of God And so presses for Obedience many ways as first from the Divine Authority of it In the word of a King there is power much more in the word of a God when known to be such In the Council of Triburia a fancy touching an Episile come from Heaven made impression in some of them Had it been really known to be so indeed the impression would have been deeper At the sound of the Command Faith knows that it is the Lord that the voice is from the excellent glory and in that Authority presses to Obedience But this is not all besides Gods Authority it urges from his Love It is saith Faith the voice of thy beloved thy dear Father in Heaven who hath cast his cords and bands of Love round about thee to draw thee to himself and then the Heart must needs feel constraints and holy inflammations to Obedience and be like St. Peter who when he knew it was the Lord girt himself and made towards him Gods Love hath dropt sweetness into the Command and made all easie Moreover to make the stronger impulse on the Believer Faith demonstrates That the Command is just and right and good that holy Love and Patience and other Graces of the first Table are pure rectitudes wherein Man stands in his true posture towards God his Goodness or Providence or some other thing in him And also that Justice and Temperance and Charity are rectitudes wherein he stands in a true posture towards others or himself for Gods sake And a Command so known moves so strongly towards Obedience that a man who would pay his debts to God or his Neighbour or himself cannot must not repugn Secondly Faith looks not only upon the letter of the Command but upon the life of Christ Where all Graces are set forth in lively and orient colours really and practically exemplified to our view Precepts possibly may have more of notion in them but Examples have more of vivacity to attract the heart to imitation above all the Example of Christ must be cogent to Believers he went up and down doing of good every step one odour of Grace or other brake from him Subjection to Parents or Magistrates or Zeal towards God in purging the Temple or Humility in washing his Disciples feet or Meekness under malicious accusations and blasphemies or melting bowels upon all occasions dropping
upon men the high Thrones with its train made Isaiah cry out as an undone man Isa 6. the voice out of the whirl-wind caused Job to abhor himself in dust and ashes Job 42.6 The bright thining man turned Daniel's comeliness into corruption Dan. 10.8 And what those outward appearances did in a sensible way that Faith which is an inward Vision of God doth in a Spiritual looking on him by Faith a dread falls on us from every Attribute or Work of his His glorious Majesty makes us go and hide our selves in the dust of our own vileness and nothingness His pure Holiness comparatively turns us and all our comely Graces into rottenness His dreadful Justice sounds so loud in the threatning that we cannot but tremble at every word of it Nay his very goodness and tender bowels lying all about us make us afraid to trample thereon by finning even those in Nature do so much more those richer ones in Grace His very rain calls for out fear Jer. 5.24 And what do those dews of the Spirit which are not common as the other His bounding the Sea doth so Jer. 5.22 and what doth his bounding corruption which else would drown Soul and all in perdition Oh how tremendous is our life our Bodies living on the Blood of Creatures and our Souls on the Blood of God our natural being lying in the arms of that Power which bears up the World and our Spiritual in the arms of that Grace which saves it Earth flowing round about us with Blessings and Heaven it self coming down in Promises and carrying back our Hopes thither Who in such Visions of Faith would not fear the Lord and his goodness Who would not tremble at Sins indignity and ingratitude After such mercies as these should we again transgress against him If we wax wanton under Goodness how soon may Soveraignty come down and recover all from us as forfeited Heaven may shut up it self and the dews of the Spirit cease our Graces may all droop and wither and our Hearts grow hard and stony one lust or other may carry us into captivity and our little remnant of Grace and Life may cry out as the Church doth O Lord why hast thou made us to err from thy ways and hardned our hearts from thy fear return for thy servants sake Isa 63.17 After all our wantonness we shall be glad to come to holy Fear again Soveraignty will make us fear him in every thing such a fight of him by Faith as this makes him practically to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fear as he is called Psal 76.11 Moreover Faith moves this Fear into act by shewing the great evil of Sin Sense looks on penal evils which press on the outward man but Faith on Sin as the greatest of evils it being an opposite to God a blot to the Soul a blast to the World a forfeiture of Heaven and fuel for the flames of Hell a thing not to be done Pro quantiscunque bonis lucrandis aut pro quantiscunque malis pracavendis for the gaining never so great a good or for the avoiding never so great an evil as Bradwardine speaks Hence St. Austin said That a man must not tell a lie to save a world And Henry Flander being a Prisoner for the Protestant Religion would not say That his Wife was his Whore no not to save his life offered to him on those terms Now Fear being a kind of flight from evil the greater the evil is the greater is the flight and when an evil is the greatest of evils such as Sin appears to Faith the flight from it is as from Hell it self and more if possible according to the saying of Anselm That if Sin were set before him on the one band and Hell on the other he would rather leap into Hell than fall into Sin Another Grace actuated by Faith is Zeal which is an intense Love or a mixture of Love and Anger or rather the heat and boyling up of all the affections in the concerns of God and his Glory This is a coal from the Altar which warms Hearts and Lives and sparkles out in every Grace and Duty without it all is in spirituali gelicidio cold and frozen as in a Sunless World Indeed without Faith Zeal is blind as in the Jew who in his heat for the Law opposes the Gospel and true Righteousness Or it runs out upon Humane things as in the Papist who crys up Traditions as a second Oracle or it moves upon selfish Principles as in the Pharisees who did all theatrically to be seen of men But when Faith comes Zeal is according to the Word as its Rule and for Divine things as the worthiest Object and out of a pure intention to Gods Glory as the supream end Faith brings us into Communion with God and makes us one spirit with him and hence it comes to pass that those things which are dear to him are so to us and those injuries which move his jealousie above stir up our Zeal here below To Faith Gods name is nomen Majestativum holy reverend fearful glorious precious a name above every name and therefore cannot be profaned but Zeal will break forth the reproaches cast on it fall more heavily on the Believer than those on himself or his near relations Nay they press harder on him than if he should hear one railing at Princes or Angels Maris the blind Bishop of Chalcedon being brought into the presence of the blasphemous Emperour Julian fell severely on him as upon an enemy of God and when Julian told him That he was blind and his Galilean God would not cure him Maris gave thanks to God who had taken away his eyes that he might not look on so wicked a wretch as Julian Such a Zeal doth Faith put forth for Gods name In like manner the Worship of God is to Faith his Homage honour on Earth Crown of glory Sanctuary of Presence a thing too precious and pure to be allayed with Humane mixtures if this be corrupted our Zeal must needs kindle at it and so much the more because his facred jealousie hangs more over his Worship than over any thing else in all the World To the other Commandments we find this annexed I am the Lord Lev. 19 but to the second I am a jealeus God Exod. 20.5 Hence Moses at the light of the Calf forgets his Meekness and in a holy Passion brake the holy Tables In the Constantinopolitan Council held about the year of our Lord 754 how hot were the Bishops against Images as a meer Pagan custom and when they were cast down how triumphant was the Peoples Zeal crying out Hodiè salus mundo now is salvation come to the world In the fifth Council of Carthage they would have the very reliques of Idolatry totally blotted out Nay Leo Bishop of Rome when the Manichees Worshipped the Sun forbade the Christians to worship towards the East that they might have nothing common with them Such
in judgment Psal 25.9 And for a pure Comfort They shall have joy in the Lord and be every day increasing it Isa 29.19 Their meek and quiet spirit makes them beautiful in the eyes of God and Man so rich a jewel proves them to be the elect of God Col. 3.12 Such Promises as these are able to meeken us under any Injuries Cicero saying Justitiae primum munus est ut ne cui noceat and adding as a salvo nisi lacessitus Lactantius cried out O quam simplicem sententiam duorum verborum adjectione corrupit What a dainty sentence did he spoil with those two words A Believer fixing his eyes on the Promises will not let go his Meekness no not for all the provocations in the World the loss of such a Jewel would be more to him than all other sufferings Another Grace actuated by Faith is Obedience Two things in the Spouse did ravish the heart of Christ her single eye of Faith and the neck-chain of Obedience Cant. 4.9 Obedience as Samuel said is better than Sacrisice And as Luther More eligible than doing Miracles Faith receiving Christ the Lord is in it self Virtual Obedience to the Commands of God and as an effect it produces actual To this end it believes the Commands to be as they are looking on the stamps of Majesty Purity Equity Righteousness therein it falls down and confesses that God is there of a truth this and that is the very Will of God and must be done primo intuitu without dispute and by all persons even the greatest on Earth Princes here are Subjects Constantine and Theodosius though Emperors stiled themselves Vassals of Christ Zedekiab the King should have humbled himself before Jeremy the Prophet 2 Chron. 36.12 Nay the Kingdom of God which is in every Command must be humbly received though coming in the hand of a child or a servant as a good Divine noteth Here all men and all in men even the Princely powers of Reason and Will with all the progeny of Thoughts and Affections must bow down before God A famous instance of which we have in the Noble Andelot in France who being questioned for a Protestant by his Soveraign Henry the second bravely professed That his Body Estate and Dignity was in his Majesty's power but his Soul was only subject to God From such a Supream Authority in the Command Faith presses strongly to Obedience and for a sweet Principle thereunto it draws a free Spirit from Christ Faith translates us into the Kingdom of Christ and there by a singular Priviledg above other Kingdom all the Subjects are ready to do the Commands of their Lord. Faith converses much about the Wounds and precious Sacrifice of Christ and there the free Spirit dwells as the free bird in the Altar Ps 84.3 And being received by Faith brings forth a numerous off-spring in acts of Obedience Faith makes us parts and pieces of Christ and so we are anointed with the Holy Ghost in some measure as his Humane Nature was in a transcendent way Faith dwells in the holy Truth and that makes us free indeed Whilest Precepts give the Rule Promises afford the Power such a Promise as that I will cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36.27 being mixed with Faith will impower us to all Obedience Hence the Service of God becomes a freedom and Obedience easie and natural moving upon the wheels of Love and wings of the Spirit which must needs be a very strong incentive to Obedience and the rather because Faith ensures the acceptance thereof Were we to obey under the Covenant of Works which will bate nothing of pure sinless Perfection our Obedience might be bootless and heartless because every act of it would vanish and come to nothing by the adherent Corruption which made Calvin say That if a man did cull out the most excellent work of all his life he would find some corrupt flesh or other in it And St. Austin Vae vite landabili Wo to a laudable life without mercy But we are to obey under the Covenant of Grace whence Sincerity is accepted and frailty covered God gives a Tostimonial of Righteousness to Noah not withstanding his Infirmities and of Perfectness to Asa notwithstanding the high Places Uprightness passes for absolute Perfection and the main of the Heart for all of it insomuch that it is said of Josiah That he turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the Law of Moses 2 King 23.25 his Sincerity was taken as if all had been fulfilled Retract lib. 1. c. 19. according to that of St. Austin Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non sit ignoscitur There are Pardons ready sealed in Heaven for Believers Insirmities God forgives what is ours in a duty and accepts what is his own Our Duties are taken into the hand of Christ the Mediator and there perfumed with his sweet Merits and though as they are in our hands they have dross and soil in them yet as they are in his they are glorified Duties and as sweet Odours to God And upon such terms as these who would not obey Every act of Obedience shall be accepted and the light of Gods Countenance will irradiate our Duties And to give a further advance to this Grace Faith looks within the Veil to the great recompence in Heaven there are Crowns of Life rivers of Pleasures and plenitudes of Joy for ever there holy Souls see all Truths in their Original drink all Good out of the Fountain and have God for their All in All and all this is the reward of our poor imperfect Obedience And as such is outwardly secured in the Promises and inwardly realized by Faith and therefore must needs move the Believer strongly to Obedience no wonder if he burn in Devotions or melt in Charity or labour in other acts of Obedience all these being but a sowing to the Spirit will come up in a crop of Eternal Life his Prayers will be turned into Hallelujahs his Alms repaid in Everlasting Love and all his good Works which follow him into another World shall be woven into a Crown of Immortality And upon such an account who would not obey and live in perpetual resignation as he did who as the story goes always concluded his Prayers thus Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me to do And lived in such holy joys as if he had been in Heaven already Another Grace actuated by Faith is Patience This is Meekness towards God as Meekness is Patience towards Man and respecteth Gods Disposing Will as Obedience doth his Commanding This is a Subjection to God a Possession of our Selves and an Admiration to Others Hence the Constancy of Annas Burgus a Senator of Paris suffering for the Protestant Cause made many curious to know what Religion that was for which he so patiently endured death To promote this Grace Faith in
saith Non legitima Christianorum Concilia sed Tyrannica Antichristi Conventicula ad oppugnandam Evangehi veritatem instituta and thus it appears even Historically that the Authority of Scripture depends not on the Church But waving this Popish Thesis in which I have by the way made this long Digression I proceed to the matter in hand True Faith being a beam or irradiation from the holy Spirit discovers That the Scriptures in general are the Word of God and which is to the Point in hand in its holy progress it arrives at an experimental knowledg thereof Peter Martyr wishes men to read the Bible seriously and adds Male sit mihi ita enim in tantâ causâ jurare ausim nisi tandem capiantur sentient denique quantum divina haec ab humanis distent Erasmus saith Expertus sum in meipso That there is little good in cursory reading it do it duly and you shall find the Divine efficacy That a Progressive Faith may attain an Experimental knowledg that the Scriptures are of God will appear by the ensuing Considerations One noble piece of Scripture is the Moral Law upon every apex of it hangs a mountain of Sence say the Rabbins every jot or tittle of it stands faster than Heaven and Earth saith our Saviour Mat. 5.18 This is the Summary of all Duties all the Moral Precepts in Scripture are but as so many Commentaries on it That this is of God Faith experiments several ways First Faith experiments it by the impresses and holy inclinations in the Believers heart answering truly though not persectly to the Law A Progressive Believer finds by reflection That the Law is written in his heart That his Heart is the very Epistle of Christ written by the holy Spirit And withal he knows that it was not always so Time was when there were no such characters or holy inclinations there his Heart was worse than a meer empty Table And hence he surely gathers that those characters or imprinted propensities are the writing of God himself and so comes experimentally to know the Epistle of God in Scripture by that in his Heart and the outward literal Edition of the Law by the inward Spiritual one which is a counterpane thereof and answers thereunto as the stamp to the Seal or one Tally to another The mutual agreement between them once discerned is a practical proof that both are of God and written by one and the same holy hand But you will say there needs no Faith to make this experiment the very Gentiles have the Law written in their Heart their natural implanted Principles comprize both Tables the first in that they tell us that there is a God to be worshipped and reverenced The second in that they tell us That we must do as we would be done to which Alexander Severus much delighted in Unto which I answer That there is a vast disserence between the natural Writing the Law in the Heart and the gracious The first is a relique or broken fragment of the Divine Image its only or at least chief seat is in the Understanding and there it stands in the dark in an abyss of black Ignorance and in the mean while there is an hellish enmity in the carnal will against the Law of God But the other is a pure perfect thing which stands in both faculties being as an holy lamp in the Understanding and as a Divine inclination in the will to do the Commends of God Hence it appears That there is not that soundation for this experiment in the Natural Inscription of the Law as in the Gracious the Natural being to the Gracious but as a little glimmering is to splendor or as the broken pieces of a Picture are to the intire Image It is with a Believer in this case as it was with Bezalceel the Word of God came forth for making the Tabernacle but Bezaleel had a fractical proof of it in the spirit of Wisdom given him for the work Or as it was with Saul the Word came forth touching the Kingdom but Saul had a Practical proof of it in the spirit of Government vouchsafed unto him And so it is with the Believer The Divine Law is experimented in the spirit of obedience and each particular Command is proved by some inward aptness answering thereunto A notable instance of this Inscription we have in Maius the German Divine who in his extream sickness having Consolatory Scriptures recited to him bravely answered Tace tace omnia cordi meo insixa tenco hold your peace I have all in my heart Promises I suppose he meant and without dispute the Precepts were there also Secondly Faith experiments it by the Divine Presence helping and comforting the Believer in acts of Obedience The Rabbins say That if two sit together conserring of the Law the Shechimah is among them And without doubt if but one single Believer be not a talking meerly of the Law but a doing of it the Divine Presence is with him Thus the Prophet to Asa The Lord is with you whilest you be with him 2 Chron. 15.2 Thus our Saviour If a man love him and keep his words the Father and the Son will come and make their abode with such a one Joh. 14.23 Such an one hath a Temple and Shechinah in his Heart God will be there helping and comforting of him in his well-doing The Church prays for help from the Sanctuary Psal 20.2 because that was a Symbol of Gods Presence And the obeying Believer cannot want help because he hath a Sanctuary within him The way of the Lord is strength to him and waiting in it he renews strength and mounts up by Auxiliary Grace as upon Eagles-wings Whilest he is a doing the will of God strength comes in as it did to the Levites that bare the Ark 1 Chron. 15.26 and with strength holy comfort also in keeping the Commands he hath great reward inward peace and joy unspeakable some of the oyl of Joy which is upon Christ the great Doer of Gods Will drops down on the Believer in his sincere Obedience As all upright ones do he dwels in Gods Presence as if he were in the borders of Heaven already the light of Gods Countenance irradiates his Duties When therefore the Believer reflects on himself and considers what a dry Land rebellion dwells in and what rivers of Peace and Joy water Obedience how weak and foolish his heart was in doing his own will and how help and strength came upon him in doing Gods he comes experimentally to know the Command to be of God whose Presence gave him such comforts and assistances therein The good hand of God upon him is a proof that the way is right the Peace growing on his work shews the righteousness of it When in Elijahs time the question was whether God or Baal should be God the fire coming down from Heaven on the Sacrifice made the People fall down and confess The Lord he is the God the Lord he is the
for his good and hence God doth not fulfil Promises of Temporals as he doth those of Spirituals Promises of Spirituals he fulfils in specie because they cannot otherwise be made good a drop of Grace being more worth than a World but those of Temporals he fulfils disjunctively either in the Blessing it self or in that which is equivalent by inward contentation and supportation compensating the absence of the thing it self These things being so the Believer in what he hath may experience the Promise in the true proportion and meaning of it and not withstanding his wants may know That in Christ he is so far heir of all things that if he could want a world he should have it As touching Spiritual Promises these are either Promises of Grace or Promises to Grace As touching Promises of Grace Faith may know these experimentally The Believer reads in his Bible That God hath promised to give an heart of flesh to make a new heart and a new spirit to write his Law in the heart to give an heart to know him to circumcise the heart that it may love him and many more such-like and afterwards reading over his own Heart he may find these precious Graces all there and be able experimentally to say of these Promises as Joshua did of those made to Israel Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord hath spoken all are come to pass Josh 23.14 In every holy melting he finds the heart of flesh in every holy frame the new heart and spirit in every holy inclination the inward engraven Law in every holy beam the Divine Teaching in every holy affection the Spiritual Circumcision all the Promises are scaled and really exemplified in his Heart and what an admirable experiment is this To see a Work within answering to the Promise in the Word is a greater sight than if a Man could have stood by and seen the light start forth into Being upon the Almighty fiat spoken by God in the Creation unto which the Apostle alludeth in setting forth the Divine light shining into the Heart in the face of Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 The Magnalia of Grace are more wonderful than those of nature Hence St. Chrysostom upon those words of the Apostle We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.10 saith of Regeneration That it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really a Creation and more noble than the old one as adding a benè vivere to that life which came from the old one The experienced Believer hath cause to say what hath God wrought how fearfully is the New Creature made all its Graces were written in the Promise and now are fashioned in the Heart where before there were none of them How precious are thy thoughts to me O God how great is the sum of them This Experiment was notably typed out in Isaac he was by Promise and as soon as he was born the Promise was experimented notwithstanding the dead body and dead womb The Believer the child of Promise is as Isaac was saith the Apostle Gal. 4.28 All the regenerating Graces are by Promise and when these are brought forth the Promise is made good maugre all the deadness of nature By the Promises we are made partakers of the Divine Nature saith St. Peter 2 Pet. 1.4 that is we have those Divine Graces which as the Creature-module will admit resemble the Holy One and so we have the Promises sealed up to us in Graces As touching Promises made to Grace such as are fulfilled in this life Faith also experiments them to be Divine In the Scripture the Believer meets with Promises of Pardon to such as repent and believe of comfort to the mourner of filling to the hungry and thirsty of the Divine secret to them that fear God of encrease of Grace to the improver and many more of the same nature To experiment these the Believer by perusing the Scripture and his own Heart doth two things first He clears it up to himself that the Graces in his Heart to which such Promises are made are true through the irradiating Spirit vouchsafed to him He may discover them to be such by Scriptural Marks he may find that his Faith purifies and works by Love That his Repentance and Mourning are chiefly for Sin That his Hunger and Thirst are humble and industrious in the use of means That his Fear is of God and his Goodness in a filial way That his improving of Talents is in a way of dependence and holy diligence and so certainly knows that these Graces in his Heart are real things This foundation being first laid then he proceeds to a second review of his Heart and there he may find how Pardons have sensibly broke in upon him in a way of Repenting and Believing or how the Sheaves of Joy and Comfort have followed his Tears or how Satisfactions Manna-like have dropped down on his hungry Soul or how Divine illuminations have come in and Crowned his Holy Fear or how Talents have multiplied in the faithful using and actuating of them And the Experiment thereupon will be compleat every Grace sooner or later being in some good measure answered by the Promises which let out their sweetness to it as God hath ordained them to do Thus the Believer sensibly enters the Land of Promise and eats of the Fruit thereof lifting up his Soul in The high Praises of him who gave the Promises in the Scripture and fulfils them in the Heart As touching Promises of eternal good things in Heaven where there are Plenitudes of Joy and Rivers of Pleasure in the Presence of Him who is All in All the completion of these is in another World nevertheless the Believer hath an experimental taste thereof here Whilest his Hope hangs upon them he finds strength and comfort come into his Heart whilst the weary World is tossing with troubles O what a refreshing is it to look into Eternity Hope Eatring within the vail is an Anchor to the Soul and so stablishes it that it doth not rowl about with the wheelings of this changeable World nor center its happiness in any or all the Creatures Let the World come in all its Fancies and glittering appearances of Good it cannot call off the Believers Heart from Heaven but it will be ready to point that way or let it come with storms of terror and troubles it cannot loosen the Anchor-hold the Believer will rather part with all the World and his Life too then let go his hold of Heaven Ye took with joy the spoiling of your goods knowing in your selves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance saith the Apostle Hebr. 10.34 Or as the Words are in the Original Knowing that ye have in your selves a better and abiding substance in Heaven He speaks as if they had carried Heaven in and about them and in part they did so for as Beza hath it on this place Fide possidemus quod est in
Father and himself would come and make their abode in such an one ver 23. The Abode of the Father and the Son in such an one is in a glorious manifestative way such as gives an experience of their being there and where the Father and the Son are there also is the holy Spirit Thus our Saviour in the 16. and 17. verses of that Chapter saith That the Spirit should abide in them and abide in them in a manifestative way Ye know him for he dwelleth with you saith he And in the 20th verse he saith At that day that is the day of the Spirits in-dwelling Ye shall know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you Oh what rich glorious Experiences of the Sacred Trinity are here and how happy the Faith and Obedience which arrives at them Godly Men should labour to perfect Holiness to walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to get to the top of Godliness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks Tit. 3.14 to be Masters and eminent Presidents in good Works that they may arrive at this great Experiment Thus far touching that center of Divinity the Sacred Trinity In the next place I proceed to the rare Supernatural Truths touching Jesus Christ all which Faith may experiment And here I shall begin with his Incarnation Venit universitatis Creator venit ad homines venit propter homines venit homo saith St. Bernard He was Immanuel God with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and Man in one Person The Eternal Word was made flesh 1 Joh. 1.14 God was manifest in the Flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 And what say the Socinian Rebels to this Truth Rationi sanae repugnat duae substantiae proprietatibus adversae coire in unam personam nequeunt ut sunt mortalem immortalem esse principium habere principie carere mutabilem immutabilem existere saith the Racovian Catechism One and the same Person cannot be Mortal and Immortal have a Beginning and no Beginning or be Mutable Immutable But reason it self though too low a bar for this Truth to appear at will absolve this truth from repugnancy Body and Soul meet in one Person adverse in Properties the one being Corporal the other Spiritual the one Visible the other Invisible the one Rational the other Irrational the one Mortal the other Immortal This is done naturally how much more may it be done Supernaturally It would be against reason to say That Christ were Secundum idem Mortal and Immortal having a Beginning and none Mutable and Immutable But it is not repugnant to say That he is so in respect of the two Natures Humane and Divine Had not Christ been Man he could not have suffered had he not been God he could not have satisfied The Blood was from the Humane Nature and the excellent Merit from the Divine He that disbelieves either must cast away Scripture which asserts both This Truth stands firm in Scripture as might be shewed at large but for the Point in hand Faith may experiment it The Believer may find in himself such fruits of Christs Incarnation as carry a resemblance thereunto and are a kind of inward Seal thereof The humane Nature of Christ was not brought forth of the blessed Virgin generatione sed jussione not in an ordinary way by knowing a man but in an extraordinary by the power of the highest and overshadowing of the Holy Ghost Answerably in the Believer the new Creature is not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God John 1.13 He that is such hath not known man nor his power in this great Work but hath had the holy Spirit and its gracious overshadowings on the heart They that dwell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his shadow shall return saith the Prophet Hos 14.7 Unless the mighty Power of God come upon us we shall have no hearts to return to him This resemblance is excellently set forth by Fulgentius Forma praecessit in carne Christi quam in nostrá side spiritualiter agnoseamus De Incarnat Christi cap. 20. ex eodem spiritu renati sumus ex quo natus est Christas eodem Spiritu Christus formatur secundum fidem in corde uniuscujusque credentis quo Spiritu secundum carnem formatus est in utero Virginis The very same Spirit which formed Christ in the womb forms him in the heart The Humane nature in Christ was united to the Divine in an Hypostatical Union God and Man met in one Person that they might meet in the Covenant of Grace Answerably the Believer is united unto God in a spiritual Mystical Union He is made one Spirit with the Lord 1 Cor. 6.17 Christ was one flesh with us and we are one Spirit with him God is at one with us in Christ and we may approach to God with holy boldness The Humane Nature of Christ had no natural Subsistence but subsisted in the eternal Word sutably the new Creature hath no spiritual Subsistence in it self but subsists in God and his Grace By the grace of God I am what I am 1 Cor. 15.10 St. Paul looked on his spiritual Being to be only by Grace In Christ God was manifested in the flesh and tabernacled in it nay the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in it Col. 2.10 As low abject a thing as Humane nature is the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in it and will dwell in it for ever sutably in Believers the Tabernacle of God is with men he dwells and walks in them and they may be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes 3.19 that is have abundance of his gracious Presence with them A Believer may find that he hath these resembling fruits in himself and withal that unless the Son of God had been incarnate none of them would have been no new Creature but all men lying in the old rubbish of the Fall no Union but an unpassable gulf such as is between Heaven and Hell no spiritual Subsistence but a corrupt one upon the dregs of Free-will no heavenly Fulness but a vacuity of all Grace And from hence he may have an experimental proof of Christs Incarnation the Mystical Union being a proof of the Hypostatical and God manifest in the Spirit of God manifest in the Flesh St. John lays down this as a glorious Truth That Jesus Christ is the Son of God 1 John 5.5 and for proof of it he produces six Witnesses Three in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost ver 7. and Three on earth the Spirit and the Water and the Blood ver 8. By the Spirit we may understand the holy Spirit breathing in the Scripture and witnessing in the heart by the Water the sanctifying Graces and those sealed in Baptism and by the Blood the precious Sufferings of Christ which pacifie the Conscience A Believer may experience all these three Witnesses on Earth
the Soul unto God as the fountain of all Good As in every lust there is a depression of the Heart to one Creature or other so in every right Prayer there is an holy elevation of it to God This gives great Glory to God as it is humble it reveres his Majesty as upright it owns his Omniscience as believing it glorifies his condescending Grace and as importunate it overcomes the Almighty and takes the Kingdom of Heaven by violence opening a door to that infinite mass or treasure of Grace which is laid up for those that strive and wrestle with him for supplies out of it This is a Catholick Duty good in all places The Jews prayed in or towards the Temple but now the whole World is consecrated for it every where holy hands are to be lifted up fit for all times praying always saith the Apostle Ephes 6.18 Not that we are to do nothing else as the Euchitae or Messaliani of old dreamed but that there is no time wherein the Mercy-seat is shut or Christ not interceding above or the holy Spirit not ready in some measure to assist Believers Neither is there any time in which we should not carry about with us a virtual confession in our sense of Sin or a virtual Prayer in our sense of Wants or a virtual Praise in our sense of Mercies Continuum desiderium est continua oratio as St. Austin hath it Vita hominis saith Luther nibil aliud est nisi oratio gemitus desiderium suspirium ad misericordiam Dei Mans life should be a perpetual breathing after God And withal it is incumbent on all Men the first Adam in Innocency probably addressed himself to God in Prayer and Jesus Christ the second Adam was much in it the Ethnicks by the light of Nature used it It was an old Gentile-Law Ad divos adeunto go to the gods Socrates prayed that he might be Intus pulcher inwardly fair with virtue Plato saith Every one who is compos mentis will in the beginning of any work invoke the gods How much more must Christians pray who have before their eyes a Gospel a Mercy-Seat and an open way into the Holy of Holies through the Veil of Christs flesh Unregencrate persons are bound to this Duty as we see in the Command to Simon Magus being in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity Act. 8.22 Much more Believers Prayer is the breath of the new-creature and badg of Christians who are thus deciphered by the Apostle All that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 1.2 Such and so great is this Ordinance that the Jews who prayed standing and therefore called Prayer Gnammuda or Standing used to say Sine stationibus non staret mundus The world would not stand without Standing or Prayer That this is an Ordinance of God the Believer experiments many ways First He experiments it in the Assistances of the Holy Spirit which is as Gales to the Sails of Prayer in its Voyage to Heaven and as holy Fire to the Incense of it causing it to ascend to the Throne of Grace The Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. 8.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It lifts over against us or helps us to lift up a Prayer which else would be too heavy for us Whilst the Believer is a-praying O what heavenly meltings are there The Believer is like Ephraim bemoaning himself or as the Children of Israel at Mizpeh lamenting after the Lord and pouring out water as if their eyes were turned into Fountains of penitential tears or as the man in the Gospel crying out with tears Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Catching at Mercy with an hand trembling at his own Infirmity Such meltings and spiritual mournings over Sin plainly shew That the Spirit of Grace and Supplication is poured out upon the Prayer making it like the bruised Incense sull of fragrancy breathing out from a broken heart dissolved into tears by the beams of Gods Love And in this Evangelical thaw What Divine enlargements are there The heart is no longer in the Straits of Sin and Earth but opened and expanded towards Heaven E're the praying Believer is a ware his Soul sets him on the wheels and his lips drop as the honey-comb if not in the very entrance of the Duty yet in the progress of it The Psalmist in the beginning of the 38th Psalm seems cold and frozen in Unbelief Gods arrows stick fast in him his hand presseth him sore the iniquities are too heavy the wounds stink and are corrupt There are nothing but bowings breaches and miserable roarings But before he hath done praying his heart recovers again In thee O Lord do I hope thou wilt hear O Lord my God ver 15. Sometimes at first there is a Cloud and dark Eclipse upon the Prayer and yet a little after Grace breaks forth with its Sunny beams and draws out the heart towards God They looked unto him and were lightned as David speaks Psal 34.5 or as the words may be read they looked unto him and flowed their hearts were as a River running out with spiritual fluency and enlargments such as are a real proof that the free Spirit is in the Prayer and withal What an heavenly ardor is there While I was musing the fire burned saith David Psal 39.3 While the Believer is a-praying the Holy Spirit is as fire upon the heart inflaming it into religious ascents towards God The Believer stirs up himself and takes hold on God by some Promise or other and Jacob-like wrestles with him for Mercy and will not let him go till there be a dawn or day-break of Grace He prays in his Prayer and urges the Attributes of God upon him and presses hard upon him with an holy immodesty or impudence as the expression is Luk. 11.8 and will not be said Nay Much like Gorgonia the pious Sister of Nazianzen who lay at the Altar with Tears and Prayers and said That she would not depart till she had her request and accordingly obtained it of God This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jam. 5.16 the inwrought Prayer or Prayer wrought by Gods Spirit in ours and from thence poured out in an agony or vehemence of holy Assections panting and breaking with longings after God and his Grace Luther having prayed with great fervency said Vtinam eodem ardore orare possem Would to God I could always pray with the like ardor then should I always have this answer Fiat quod velis Be it unto thee as thou wilt After this manuer doth the Holy Spirit come down on the Believers Prayer and bear witness to this Ordinance Secondly He experiments it in his Access to God The Devils who are in Chains of Darkness can make no approaches to God there is an unpassable gulf between them and him It is storied of a German Nobleman that there was acted before him a Play of the five Wise and five Foolish Virgins the Wise were St. Mary St. Catbarine St.
my Glory manifested For the right understanding of these we must note Christ did not come only or chiefly to cure the Bodies of Men no those Miracles which in transitu cured their Bodies Miracula christi corporaliter facta Spiritaliter intelligenda snut were ultimately levelled at their Souls that by Outward Cures they might be led to seek Inward ones from Christ Neither did he do all his Miracles on Earth no being Ascended and Sitting at the Right Hand of Majesty in Heaven he works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Spiritual Miracles on the Souls of Men which are incomparably greater than those on their Bodies How many blind Hearts and those worse than blind Eyes hath he cured by a Touch as he passed by them in the Ordinances causing them to see himself the True light and Sun of Righteousness together with all the Heavenly Mysteries which stream as so many Beams or Rayes from him How many deaf Souls have upon his Divine Ephatha been obedientially opened to the Commands of God and though lame before have Rose up walked holily and praised God what Spiritual Lepers hath he by a Touch of his Spirit and Word cleansed Quae enim immunditia quae incredulitas quae duritia quod peccatum ad hunc contactum Christi consistere poterit saith Ferus No uncleanness unbelief hardness sinfulness can stand against the Touch of Christ What Sinners of all forts dead in Sins and Trespasses hath he raised up to a Divine Life Saint Austin reciting that Christ had raised up three Persons viz. The Maid in her Fathers House the Young-Man carried out upon the Bier and Lazarus four days dead and stinking in the Grave adds Ista tria genera mortuorum sunt tria genera peccatorum quos suscitat Christus these three dead ones are three sorts of Sinners raised up by Christ As the Maid in the house so is the secret Sinner raised up intra latebras conscientiae within the doors of his own Heart As the young Man carried out upon the Bier so is the open Sinner raised up out of known Sins And as Lazarus dead and stinking in the grave so is the customary Sinner raised up out of his old putrified Sins At the voice of Christ the strongest bonds of custom are broken and the poor Sinner comes forth into an holy life These things being so it appears That the Believer may experiment the Spiritual Miracles of Christ and from thence gather a proof in his own Heart That the very same hand wrought the Corporal ones especially seeing these latter are but types and shadows of the other which he finds verified in himself Thus much touching this Fundamental Experiment of the Scriptures A Believer may experiment the Laws Promises Threatnings Supernatural Truths Sacred Ordinances and Great Works in Scripture to be Divine and so have a Practical proof that the Scripture is of God CHAP. XIII Of the top and highest stature of Faith the Believers Assurance of his good estate of Pardon and Salvation That this Assurance is attainable many ways demonstrated HAving passed over the Believers Experiment touching the Scripture I shall now proceed to another touching his own Estate He may certainly know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionysius speaks That it is well with him That he is in a good state of Pardon and Salvation This is apex fidei the top and highest stature of Faith a Priviledg which transcends Earth and antedates Heaven to us Here are those three things Lumen Laetitia Pax Light Joy and Peace which as the Schoolman Halensis saith render the experiment of Grace in the Soul truly certain Here are Coelestial Beams unspeakable Joys admirable Serenities Sabbaths of Rest Seas of Sweetness and Beatitudes too great for the tongue of Men and Angels to express Before the Believer walked only with the single staff of Recumbency and Resignation but now he hath bands and troops of Comfort following after him from the Promises His darling Soul is now richly provided for to all Eternity Eternal Beanty is in his Eye Infinite Goodness at hand for his Embraces the lines are fallen in a kind of Paradise his Portion is no less than God himself all his Blessings are dipt in Love The World may brand him but the Spirit seals In the midst of sweeping Judgments he is still one of Gods Jewels and as soon as Death dissolves him Heaven receives him Touching this great Experiment I shall first prove That it is attainable by a Believer and then shew in what ways it is to be attained The Romanists hold That no Man without special Revelation can be certain of his Pardon and Salvation not with a certainty of Faith Bellar. de Juslif lib. 3. which is infallible but only with a certainty of Hope which is conjectural The Promises indeed are sure say they but our Dispositions are uncertain The Promises run Conditionally If they return to thee with all their heart 2 Chron. 6.38 and who can be sure that he doth so Who can say I have made my heart clean saith the Wise-man Prov. 20.9 Who can understand his errors saith David Psal 19.12 Some Scriptures put a peradventure upon Remission Who can tell if God will turn and repent Jon. 3.9 Repent if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee Act. 8.22 And the reason is because of the uncertainty of our Dispositions Faith is not Faith unless it lean on the Divine Word and no Word saith Such or such an one hath true Faith and Repentance or is truly pardoned Happy is the man that feareth always Prov. 28.14 The heart of man is deceitful above all things who can know it Jer. 17.9 Assurance if vouchsafed would but puss up Pride and open a door to Licentiousness Thus the Pontisicians Their Divinity in this great Point is much like the Philosophy of the old Scepticks those Patrons of all Uncertainty who used to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason against Reason puts all Propositions in aequilibrio the Balance hangs even without Declension this or that way after all debates imaginable still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps it is so perhaps not It may be they do see and hear it may be not at least they doubt whether they do it distinctly or no. After the same sort the Romanists do what they can to perswade Believers out of their Spiritual sense out of which Assurance ariseth It may be will they say thou repentest and believest it may be not or if thou dost them it may be not sicut oportet in such a manner as they ought to be done Hence the Council of Trent Can. 9â—â— calls the certainty of Remission vain and remote from all Piety This is that Doctrine of theirs which Luther calls Monstrum dubitationis the monster of doubting and withal asserts That if they erred only in this it were a just eause for us to separate from such an Infidel-Church Learned Pareus stiles it Desperationis ossicina the shop of
cannot do it Among all Nations Seals are great Confirmatives When Darius but a man Signed the Decree though of Iniquity it was unalterable by the Law of the Medes and Persians Dan. 6.12 And what the Great God Seals in the Sacrament in a way of Grace and Mercy must much more be so by the Law of his own Truth and Faithfulness The Jews looking on the Rainbow bless God who remembers his Covenant and is faithful in his Promises as being sure that the World shall not be drowned again Much more may the Believer looking on the Bread and Wine do so as sure of Pardon and Salvation in and through Christ But you will say Gods Seal indeed is sure but our Disposition is uncertain and how can we know that we are worthy Receivers I answer Very well The worthiness required is not that of condignity but that of congruity The least Grace if true though but a bruised reed and smoaking flax amounts to a capacity May we not know That we truly hunger and thirst after Christ when we inwardly feel a pinching and pressing necessity of him equal to or rather more than any want in Nature May we not find That our Faith in God is right when it assimilates us to his Holiness as well as rests in his Grace and puts forth Obedience to his Commands as well as Affiance towards his Promises May we not say That we love him indeed when the main stream of our hearts runs towards him when at least in endeavour we obey him in every Command seek him in every Ordinance glorifie him in every Condition and prize him in every Saint Hath he not bid us welcom to the Sacrament Hath he not anointed us with fresh Oyl of Grace and Joy whilst we have sat at his Table Have we not been clothed with Power against our Corruptions Have not our Hearts been enlarged and refreshed from the Presence of God there How many melting and ravishing Prospects of a Crucified Christ have we there enjoyed And what beams of Heaven and Eternity have broke in upon us in the very Duty These things to Believers who have the exercise of their spiritual Senses are so obvious that they may easily and surely conclude That God hath indeed welcomed them to his Table and there Sealed Pardon and Salvation to them In this rich estate a Believer may bid all Scruples be gone and in an holy manner say to his Soul Soul take thy ease thou hast much goods laid up for eternity Thou art now secure of Pardon and Salvation The Holy Spirit hath Sealed them to thy Heart and the Sacraments to thy very Sense and Conscience witnesses to both as True and Infallible and what can be more Nothing remains but to keep thy self in the Love of God till he take thee up to the pure bliss above CHAP. XIV Of the Ways in which the Assurance of Faith is attained With the Conclusion of the whole THus much touching the first thing That Assurance is attainable I now proceed to the other viz. The ways in which it is attained All which are as so many further Arguments to prove it attainable Were it not so the All-wise God would not set down ways for the attaining thereof Impossibles are not to be sought after Assurance however difficult is not impossible The Scripture hath chalked out a Method how to arrive at it which I shall endeavour to open in the ensuing Discourse In the first place He who would attain Assurance must give Grace and Christ their due All spiritual Blessings grow upon Grace as an eternal Root and hang upon Christ as the Tree of Life In particular Assurance is a Blessing proper to the Covenant of Grace In the Covenant of Works there was no Assurance or Perseverance because the whole managery was left to Mans Will But in the Covenant of Grace these are to be found in Believers because God undertakes the work This is the rather to be marked because man under the Covenant of Works was in a state of Innocency and perfect Holiness and under the Covenant of Grace is in a state of Weakness and Imperfection and yet there through Faith he arrives at Assurance and Perseverance which were never reached under the First Covenant Saint Paul in the 10th Chapter to the Romans notably distinguishes between the Righteousness of the Law and the Righteousness of Faith The Righteousness of the Law is That the man which doth those things shall live in them No Life or Peace but upon perfect Obedience which is impossible and beyond the line of man lapsed nay of man regenerate in this life Hence the Conscience of those who would enter into Peace at this Door must needs be dubious and full of trembling anxieties But the Righteousness of Faith speaketh on this wise Say not in thine heart Who shall ascend into Heaven Doubt not whether thou shalt have a part there this is to bring Christ down from above He is gone to Heaven and hath carried his Merits thither to prepare a place for thee there Such a doubt denies his Ascension and so as it were brings him down again Neither say in thine heart Who shall descend into the deep Doubt not as if thou shouldst be turned into Hell this is to bring up Christ again from the dead He is already risen and hath triumphed over Death and Hell Such a doubt denies his Death and Resurrection and doth as it were bring him again from the dead But what saith the Righteousness of Faith The Word the Promise of Pardon and Salvation is nigh thee O Believer in thy mouth and in thy heart confessing and believing on the Lord Jesus thou shalt be saved Thou in particular thy Soul shall dwell at ease thy Conscience shall enter into rest in the Covenant of Grace To doubt of it is to deny the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ He therefore who would have Assurance must give Grace and Christ their due One would think that the Papists who hold That they may by perfect Obedience reach the apex of the Law and go beyond it in works of Supererogaton and climb Heaven it self by their own Merits might arrive at Assurance much rather than Protestants who instead of exceeding the Law confess themselves much short of it and instead of meriting Heaven acknowledg all their Righteousnesses to be but a filthy rag But it is far otherwise the Papists generally do not so much as doctrinally hold it save here and there a man among them such as Antonius Marinarius who in the Council of Trent asserted it concluding his Speech thus Si Coelum ruat si Terra evanescat si orbis illabatur praeceps ego in Deum erectus ero Much-like the Prophet Habakkuk who in an universal languishment of nature would yet rejoice in the Lord the God of his Salvation much less do they practically arrive at it Bellarmine himself after his fair life died not like a Bolton or a Rivet not knowing whether
thee in intimate Communion and sup with thee in the acceptance of thy Graces and thou shalt sup with him at a Banquet of Love Thou mayst experimentally say That the Gospel is come to thee in power and in the holy Ghost and in much Assurance as the Apostle speaks 1 Thess 1.5 In Power in the first work of Conversion in the holy Ghost in the gracious indwelling of it after Faith and in much Assurance in the Sealins of Truth and Love upon the heart Next to that of the Word I recommend Prayer to thee This is an excellent Ordinance it wrestles with God and like a Prince prevails with him It unlocks the Treasury of Grace and fetches down all Blessings it hath a king of Omnipotency in it and if with reverence I may so allude As God brought forth all things by the breath of his mouth so the Believer produces all Blessings by the breath of Prayer Apollonius as Sozomen relates never asked any thing of God but he obtained it And of Luther it was said Iste vir potuit apud Deum quod voluit This man could do what he would with God Ask and thou shalt have Ask the sealing Spirit and thou shalt have it ask in the Name of Jesus Christ His Merits are as pure Incense able to perfume thy Prayers and as a powerful Orator to perswade the Comforter to come down to thee Ask in the holy Spirit in the Grace and sweet Gales of it That the Spirit may be an answer to it self the Spirit as sealing Gods Love an answer to it self as inspiring thy Prayers Ask in Faith Hath not God told thee of a witnessing Spirit Hath he not said That he will speak peace to his Saints Are not his Promises as so many Bonds upon his Truth to make the things promised good Prove him by Prayer if he will be as good as his Word see if he will not own his own hand in the Promise wrestle with him till the day break in the light of his Countenance lifted up upon thy heart Ask in fervency that whilst thy heart is burning with Love towards God his Love which is the Fountain of thine may reveal it self to thee The old Token of acceptance was firing the Sacrifice and it is still a pledg of success when there is warmth in Prayer Ask in sincerity in a pure intention not for self-ease not that thou mayst fare deliciously upon the Love of God but that thy Spirit may be the freer to his service that thy Zeal may be more inflamed towards his Glory The prayer of the upright is his delight in so praying thou shalt meet the favour of God It is very remarkable what posture Paul was in when Ananias was sent to comfort him Behold he prayeth saith God go let him be filled with the Holy Ghost In the beginning of Psal 13. Davids Faith run very low How long wilt thou forget me O Lord for ever how long wilt thou hide thy face from me ver 1. A while after it lifts up it self a little Consider and hear me O Lord my God lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death ver 3. but praying on it is in the altitudes I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoice in thy Salvation ver 5. Prayer is one of Gods sealing times in it thou approachest and drawest nigh to him who is the fountain of Life and Joy Whilest thou art opening and pouring out thy Heart to him Who knows but he may open his Heart and incomparable Love to thee the holy Spirit may come and tell thee as the Angel Gabriel did Daniel in the same posture That thou art greatly beloved a man of desires with God In the last place make use of the Lords Supper There God makes a Royal feast a feast of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well resined he sets forth Christ crucified whose flesh is meat indeed whose blood is drink indeed Come eat his flesh and drink his blood that you may live for ever Eat and let thy Soul delight it self in fatness drink yea drink abundantly O beloved Soul or as the Original Text may be read Be drunk or happily inebriated with the sweet Love of Christ the same crucified Christ which in the Sacrifice on the Cross satisfied Gods heart at this Sacrament can satisfie thine Never any Feast like this which chears the Heart of God and Man How will God manifest his Love here in Salutations Kisses and Unctions The Jews at their Feasts used many demonstrations of Love such as Salutations faying to their Guests Peace be unto thee Kisses from whence afterwards Christians derived their Kiss of Charity or as Tertullian calls it Oscuculum Pacis A Kifs of Peace and Oyl poured out upon the Head called therefore Oleum laetitiae The Oyl of gladness And cannot God do much more at his Table Cannot he salute thee and say Peace Peace to thee because thou trustest in him Cannot he kiss thee with the kisses of his mouth and cause one Promise or other to drop sweetness into thy heart Cannot he give thee the rich anointings of the holy Spirit and sill thee with all joy and peace in believing Let thy Spikenard thy Faith and Love and other Graces send forth their smell that he may break a Box of Spikenard in thy heart and fill and perfume it with the sweet odours of his Love Wait upon him in this Ordinance there he doth by outward and visible Elements seal Pardon and Salvation to thee and believe it he that puts one Seal to thy Sense can put another to thy Heart unto the Seal of Elements he can add the Seal of the Holy Spirit with the outward Bread and Wine thou mayst have the hidden Manna and heavenly refreshments from Christ Whilst thou art renewing thy Covenant and avouching the Lord to be thy God he can own thee and avouch thee to be one of his Children and this will be more to thee than a World Again If thou wouldst be assured walk in Vprightness this is Gospel-perfection the Believers Beauty the soundness of all his Graces the desire and delight of God himself as being a Beam from his own Truth and Simplicity In Scripture he seldom mentions an upright man without setting some mark of Honour upon him Enoch walked with God as one familiar with him Gen. 5.22 and as the Septuagint and after them the Apostle Heb. 11 hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he pleased God and how great a Character is this Caleb followed God fully and he is stiled a man of another Spirit such as is above the rate of common Souls Job was a perfect and upright man and God calls him a none such in the Earth The Jews say That the Seventy Souls that went with Jacob into Egypt were worth as much as all the Seventy Nations in the World I am sure the upright the Israelites indeed are the Pearls and Excellent ones in the Earth Now
here I recommend three things to thee To walk as in Gods presence To have an universal respect to his Commands and To carry a pure intention towards his Glory All these have a great tendency to Assurance Walk as in Gods Presence Remember that he is every-where Thou needest not a Vision or Jacobs Ladder where-ever thou art thy Faith can tell thee that God is in the place and it is too dreadful to sin in His Presence besets thee behind and before and thou canst not break away from it thy ways are all before him nay thy very heart He knows the make of it and stands by the inward Frame and secret Springs thereof seeing what is a forming there upon the Wheel and what thoughts are taking their flight from thence All is naked and open as in an Anatomy before his Face He is intimior intimo tuo nearer to thee than thou art to thy self Walk as in his Presence Live as under his all-seeing Eye Seneca would have us set a Cato or a Laelius before our eyes and to compose our Lives as in their Presence Magna pars peccatorum tollitur si peccaturis testis assistat saith he A present witness would prevent a great deal of sin Think thus with thy self Cave Spectat Deus Take heed God seeth Keep fresh apprehensions of him in thy thoughts Think purpose speak act do every thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of and in an holy congruity to his Presence Walk with him that thou mayst be translated though not as Enoch corporally into Heaven yet as a sincere Believer mentally into the Suburbs of it in the Manifestations of Gods Favour Look stedfastly constantly unto him that thou mayst have sweet Aspects and Love-glances from him Thou mayst have his Favourable Presence whilst thou livest under his Awful one The upright shall dwell in thy presence Psal 140 that is in thy gracious Presence They set him before them and he causes his Grace and Love to pass before them In the next place Have an universal respect to his Commands It is a vulgar Rule among the Jewish Doctors That men should single out some one Command out of the Law and exercise themselves therein that God may be their Frsend and bear with them other things But this is to Indent and Article with God upon our own Terms The Hypocrite as one elegantly expresses it like a globous body touches the Law in some one point in some particular Command but the Upright at least in desire and endeavour lies close and level to all the Will of God The Pharisees seemed to be very much for the First Table but after all their Fasting and Prayer they could swallow down Widows Houses and so give the lye to all their Devotions The Moralist seems to be as much for the Second Table but as fair as his Life is towards Man he is very unjust to God stealing away that heart which is infinitely more due to him than the justest of Debts can be to our Neighbour If thou wouldst be assured thou must have an universal respect to his Command do not pick and chuse among them but as David be for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Wills of God as Zachary and Elizabeth walk in all his Commandments Wherever the Divine stamp is there let thy Obedience be that thou mayst have a great Reward Light is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psal 97.11 Upon sincere Obedience a crop of Comfort comes up and because by Promise much surer than that of the Husbandman which is under Providence only The righteous Lord loveth righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright Psal 11.7 In the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their faces behold the upright the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Three Persons in the Sacred Trinity do all look with a loving Aspect upon such an one Our Saviour hath told us as much If a man sincerely keep the holy Words The Father and the Son will come to him and make their abode with him John 14.23 And a little after follows a Promise of the Holy Spirit as a Comforter verse 26. Walk uprightly and thou art in a posture to receive sweet manifestations of Love from the whole Sacred Trinity In the last place carry a pure Intention towards Gods Glory This is the single eye in the Body of Duties all our good Works lie in the dark without it the want of this was as a black line drawn over Amaziah's vertue He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not with a perfect heart 2 Chron. 25.2 Jehu was anointed and appointed by God to destroy Ahabs House and yet for want of a pure Intention was reckoned as a Murderer for doing so Hos 1.4 That which is true Prayer when it comes from Zeal may be but howling when it comes from Lust Hos 7.14 Those Moral Vertues which are very glossie in the Matter may in the End be no better than splendid sins The End is the purest off-spring of a rational Spirit and a cardinal circumstance in every Action The Soul conceives all its Thoughts before the End as Labans Ewes did their young before the Rods. As the End is earthly or heavenly so is the Man and his Acting Remember O Believer that thou wast not made a Man or a Saint Thy Lamp of Reason was not set up at first or new-lighted afterwards by Grace that thou shouldst center on any thing less than God himself or take thy aim lower than his Glory Set thy heart on that great End look right on it with a single eye whether thou eatest or drinkest or prayest or hearest or whatever good work thou art about carry on the great Design That God in all may be glorified How taking this is with Christ He himself hath told us Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes with one chain of thy neck faith he to his Church Cant. 4.9 A pure Intention is that single eye and Obedience that chain of the neck which in Believers doth excordiate and ravish the heart of Christ himself And what sweet returns will he make upon such taking Graces Their Graces ravish his Heart and his Comforts will ravish theirs Their thoughts are upon Gods Glory and Gods are upon their Peace With the upright he will shew himself upright with the pure he will shew himself pure They are upright in Duties and he will be upright in Promises They give him pure Intention and he will give them pure Mercy such as is the sealing of his Love upon their Hearts The pure in heart shall see him not in the bliss-making Vision only but before in those Love-glances which are the First-fruits of Heaven here below Again If thou wouldst be assured be much in charity and doing good As the Elect of God put on bowels of Mercy Open thy heart to the poor in Pity and thy hand