also as a joyful witness both clearing our evidences and opening our minds to discern them The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Sons of God Hereby we come to have boldness confidence and a perspicuous manifestation of Divine love shed abroad in our heart and certain knowledge and full assurance of knowledge and hope of Faith Let us draw near with all full assurance of Faith The word imports a carrying on with full Saile like a Ship that hath Wind and Tyde and all the Sailes spread to the Wind. Those three parts of God's Kingdome Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost are consequents and effects of these three Applications The first namely that of adherence hath Wind and Tide against it The second hath Wind carrying it on but without Tide The third hath both Wind and Tide and all the affections like spread Sailes filled with the Gales of the Spirit causing joy unspeakable and full of Glory In the Church of Rome this Doctrine of full assurance is cryed down and an impossibility of attaining it by any ordinary Christians asserted and the main reason they render for the Confirmation of this Doctrine especially as to the subjective certainty of perseverance whereof Paul speaks when he saith I am sure that nothing shall be able to separate us from the Love of God in Jesus Christ Is the mutability of Man's will but the assurance of Christians depends not upon Man's mutable but upon the immutable will of God and upon his infallible truth who hath promised to keep them whom he receives in him by his strongest power if there can be conceived any degree in Omnipotency we are kept by the Guard of God's Power through Faith unto Salvation They askt what ground hath any ordinary Christian for special faith when there is no special promise nor any Divine testimony by audible Voice such as some choice Persons have had as Gen. 15. 1. Mat. 9. 2. Luk. 5. 20. 47. 48. 23. 42. 43. They are answered we will not contend about bare words whether it be better called special faith or assurance gathered from two promises the one in Scripture the other in our hearts so participating of Faith for that is our sence of special Faith but as to the matter 1. There are general promises with a command to apply them 2. Special Faith is gathered by argumentation thus whoever hath God's Spirit confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God that Man dwelleth in God But so have I so do I therefore I dwell in God 3. Sacraments give ground for special Faith wherein is made special application to the receivers 4. The Spirit is given for this end to believers as a seal and earnest and witness to assure them that God is their Habitation and Salvation And that it 's possible for a Christian in ordinary course to attain this grace if he do what in him lyeth We have God's express promise to this purpose Thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and Redeemer and a charge is laid upon every Christian to make his calling sure and not to come without full assurance when they draw nigh to him in Prayer and other duties of his Worship Let us draw neer him in full assurance of Faith And we have the experience of God's People in all ages for it And though they that profess they had it as Job David Paul were rare Persons Yet the Faith of the meanest Christian is of the same Nature with theirs though not in the same degree This is the Doctrine of the reformed Churches who yet deny not the difficulty of attaining the highest degree and that very few there are that attain it and fewer that have it at all times alike nor any in that perfection but that there is some mixture of doubting And this is one sign of the truth and goodness of it when it is attained with difficulty and assaulted with infidelity For there are many whom Satan and their own heart have deluded in this point who are strongly perswaded that God is theirs never doubted of their interest in him make no question but the Lord is their Habitation who entered not in by the Door never received the spirit of bondage to fear have no fear of offending God no care to please him but live in known sin against the light of knowledge and checks of Conscience which evinceth them to be in the gall of bitterness Now these who in their own conceits have taken up their dwelling in God like those buyers and sellers that took up their seats in the Temple without the Warrant against the consent of the Owner of that House must be dealt with by the Ministers of Christ as those Intruders by Christ were driven out with a scourge And as Nehemiah dealt with Tobiah who had got a Chamber in the Court of the House of God who cast both him and his stuff out of it Avoid prophaneness come not here nothing but holy pure and clear or that which groaneth to be so may enter or abide one Moment at his peril To you who can prove your assurance that you are in God to be of God by the qualification of your Persons as having formerly been humbled for your living without God in the World and at present humble your selves to walk with your God and resolve so to do to the end of your life Unto you I am sent with a manifold Word of Exhortation 1. To prize this as the greatest blessing and rejoyce in it more than in all other blessings and accordingly to praise God for it that he hath given you to know that he is your Habitation Lifting up the Light of his Countenance upon you and giving you Eyes to see that Light There be many that say who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time when their Corn and Wine increased because thy loving kindness is better than life my Lips shall praise thee Thus will I bless thee while I live Because thou hast caused me to feel the effects of thy Grace at full even as the Sun shooteth out his Beames at Mid-Day And because I finde this to be the life of my life without which every Day would be more bitter to me than Death Therefore for this above all Mercies will I bless thee every Day and I will praise thy Name for ever 2. To hold fast what you have and be alway adding to it as worldly Men do by their Earthly substance How oft are Christians exhorted to hold fast every good spiritual thing that they have gotten Hold fast as with Tooth and Nail the faithful Word The pure and sincere Doctrine of the Gospel against those Gain-sayers that would snatch it from you and not only the matter but the forme
underneath you and you shall be able both to do and suffer all things through him that strengthneth you Upon all these and many more accounts Ascribe the strength unto God his excellency is over Israel and his strength is in the Heavens The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his People Blessed be God From the third property of your Habitation Viz. Largeness Learn rightly to conceive of this property holding forth the infiniteness immensness and omnipresence of God being without quantity and measure every where both within and without the World filling all places with his essence as the whole Soul is said to be in the whole Body and in every part of it so is God whole and wholly in every part of the World Behold the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee His greatness is unsearchable infinite and incomprehensible The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstool Am I a God at hand saith the Lord and not a God afar off Can any hide himself in secret Places that I shall not see him saith the Lord Do not I fill Heaven and Earth Yea and Hell too If I make my Bed in Hell behold thou art there This must teach us to banish all gross conceits of God out of our mind and to detest the making any Picture of him by which he is denyed to be incomprehensible and to see him though invisible to be present with you where ever you are his Eye beholding whatsoever you are doing This Consideration filled David's heart with shame and sorrow for his sin and made it to lye so heavy upon his Conscience I have done this evil in thy sight All my care was to be secret to hide my sin from the Eyes of Men but all this while thine Eye was upon me There is no Man but would be restrained from many sins if they knew of any body that was by them to see what they did The Murderer Adulterer are brought in by Job imboldening themselves No Eye shall see me As if he had said if they knew there was any Eye to see them they durst not do it Moreover in all their Meditations Contemplations of God take as full a view of him as you can Hear him saying behold me behold me Especially take notice of the largeness and greatness of his goodness and bounty All the dimensions of its breadth length depth and heighth with admiration O how great is thy goodness which thou hast for them that fear thee As high as the Heaven is above the Earth as the space is between the East and West I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord his great goodness the multitude of his mercies And labour for largeness of heart in some sort answerable From the rest of the properties of this your habitation and from all the furniture in it and from each of the conveniencies belonging to it I shall leave you to gather comforts and duties in abundance having this one thing only more to do Namely to acquaint you with some of the Statutes Lawes and Ordinances of the House and earnestly to press upon you the Observation of them by promises and penalties annexed The general Laws of this House binding all that live in it are partly natural and partly supernatural The natural are Ten in Number called in Scripture Ten Words and some where One Word The Divine Law teaching and commanding Moral good and forbidding evil known by the Name of Moses Law Uttered and promulgate with God's own Mouth by his immediate Voice delivered in Fire and therefore termed a Fiery Law in the hearing of all Israel Afterwards written with his own Finger by a mere and miraculous divine Operation in Two Tables of Stone to signifie the perpetual use and continuance of it to the end of the World and so published and committed to the Church for all Ages as the Moral Law for Obedience to God our Soveraign Lord and King This self same Law did God engrave in Man's heart even when he created him For that before the written Law of Moses there was an unwritten Law of Nature must needs be granted because needs must they be bound to God who had their Beeing from him Nor could they have sinned against him if they had had no Law from him For where no Law is there is no transgression Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the Law But sin Men did all this space of time and were punished with a witness Witness Cain the old World Sodom Onan and innumerable of others and they were punished for the sins forbidden in Moses Law and the Apostle expresly teacheth that the Gentiles who never had the written Law of Moses had their Natural Law even this Law though less perfect imprinted in their Souls by which they were instructed and bound to do well and debarred from doing evil which are the two properties of all Lawes And these two properties called The work of the Law written in their Hearts they shewed their Conscience bearing witness their Hearts accusing or excusing one another The Conscience being but a correspondency and relation of a Man's Spirit unto the Law to bind or unbind condemn or absolve him Moreover the good Laws the Heathen made to punish the evils forbidden and to draw People to practice the good commanded in the Law of Moses and the endeavour of many of them to act accordingly argues the Unity of both Laws The reason of which unity is the unchangeableness of God who is alway the same Qu. What need was there of the repetition and renovation of this Law Or if there was need Why was it not sooner Answ To the former Branch though Nature brought the same things yet it did it very weakly and many conclusions were obliterated and others much obscured and all Mens hearts were weakly drawn to obey this Law very strong to obey the Law of sin And although the Law of Nature could scarce never have been extinguished in Principles and Grounds yet it might and was and would have been more in Applications Men took evil for good and good for evil and grew more and more vain in their imaginations To the latter Branch Man's heart was not after his Fall throughly humbled but thought his own reason sufficient for his Guide therefore God would leave the World a while to try them and let them see their own weakness Besides sin was not come quickly to such a pitch and height as afterward it did and yet we finde that God did by peece-meal and occasionally teach them this Law presently and almost equipollently before its solemn Proclamation The Unity of these two Laws lets you see as the constancy and Immutability of your God who is not as other Law-givers who build and pull down and whom a Man knows as well how to
better discern of one than of another it will be needful to speak a word or two to each of them That is a New heart which is furnished with a new spirit that is to say new dispositions inclinations and habits It 's called new because it 's opposed to the old spirit that of the World and of the Devil who by breathing on Men makes them go an end into old courses And because it s ever fresh and green and comfortable to them that have it That is a Broken heart which is smitten and pierced with remorse for sin broken down and brought low all high thoughts laid flat and level Broken off from the wayes of sin and stubborness in pursuit of those wayes Broken up as fallow ground made soft and tender as Josiahs was That 's an open heart which is enlightned to see our estate by nature and bewail it And to see comfort in Christ and rejoyce in it To have it also enlarged towards God's faithful Ministers as Lydia's was towards Paul and his fellow-labourers who constrained them to come into her House and abide there as also to run the way of God's Commandments A Single heart is opposed to eye-service and to carnal wisdom and to double mindedness and to guile A Whole heart is a willing heart when we are willing to a thing we use to say with all our hearts It 's opposed to a heart withdrawing it self and to a heart divided willing to lay hold on God and the World too and that fulfilleth not to walk after God That heart is pure that suffers no sin to abide in it without disallowance It being both against the judgment and will and when after falling into sin there is a speedy rising again with self-abhorring 1. A Perfect heart includes integrity and uprightness The heart is then intire when it is sanctified throughout and when there is a study and desire to attain perfection of degrees and a readiness to do all whatsoever God calls for and a constant holding unto God Following hard after him Keeping race with him And it is then upright when it is solid and true great just and when it is led by a right rule and aimes at a right end Such a heart as this God loves and dwells in and if you provide such a dwelling place for God he will be your dwelling place Qu. But is all this or any of this in the power of meer natural Men Such as you have been all this while perswading and advising to do Is it not severally taught and held that no Man can do any thing to help forward or further his own conversion Is it not a truth that no natural Man hath any desire of grace or of the means of grace never thinks of it because he is dead in trespasses and sins and how can a dead Man desire Life or use any means to attain it Nor when God by his Word makes offer of his grace can he perceive it Nor when he doth by God's Word and Spirit beginning to enlighten him in some measure to perceive it is he able to imbrace it Because wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God and because he is under the power of Satan And is not the Religion of the Papists convinced of gross error for teaching that the natural man is able both by his free-will to prepare himself for grace and to accept of grace when it is offered Yea to desire it like the Man that lay in the way to Jericho half dead yea and to do some good works If all this were true yet it hinders not but that God's Ministers may and ought to call upon natural Men to do what they can to reach forth their utmost towards grace for the obtaining of it Hear ye deaf and look ye blind that ye may see Some power they had which they are commanded to exaert and act and they are reproved for not doing what they could Ye Hypocrites ye can discern the face of the Skie and how is it that ye cannot discern this time Yea and why even of your selves That is your own Conscience dictates to you so many proofs of God's truth and God's Kingdom being set forth so clearly unto you by so many marks and tokens Judge ye not what is right that is to say that I am the Messias you have so long looked for They had therefore power to judge of the Visitation of Grace and God's Kingdom and in the Verses following they are told they neglected the time of God's patience It would befall them as a Debtor who suffers himself to be imprisoned after wearying out his Creditor namely that they should finde no more grace or pardon at his hands Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is neer Nor ought Nature to be laid over-low Grace is Nature's perction what does it but repair the decayes of Nature Nature is the matter and Grace the Forme of God's Kingdom both in Earth and Heaven It Figures and Formeth Nature to the Image of God Moreover this is the way of God's exhibiting grace there is a necessity of Natures concurrence First this must precede as we are taught to pray for our daily bread before forgiveness of sins God cannot save an unwilling Man the will being uncapable of force and violence and all possibilities divine are carried on in an ordinary way of Man's industry who must therefore carry on himself as far as he can which whoso doth not hath no ground to expect common grace He that doth may expect to receive supernaturals common And he that abides with God in these may probably expect supernaturals special Qu. What are the abilities which Nature may and must reach forth in the pursuit of saving grace Answ She may and must approve the good ways of God More purity of Principles being left in Mans mind and conscience than in his will and affections That devilish Sorceress could say I see and allow and like that which is good and honest though I pursue and practice the contrary That sentence and principle pressed by our Saviour All things whatsoever ye would that Men should do unto you do ye unto them was the Posie of an Heathen Emperour 2. She may and must assay and make after Lift at the Commandments of God as a blind Horse having heard a noise hath been seen to lift up his head and turn that way where the noise came And a Child being commanded by his Father to reach a thing which he cannot will put to the little strength it hath and tug at it to remove bear and bring it 3. Matter of duty and obedience may be done by a natural Man They did well that took heed to the Word as to a light shining in a dark place though the Day-star was not yet risen in their hearts There is no outward exercise of Religion but we finde graceless
pardon I have born chastisement I will not offend any more that which I see not teach thou me If I have done iniquity I will do no more Confess thy sins with such an honest as well as broken heart and thou needest not fear but God will open the Door to thee and let thee see himself again He that keepeth his sins upon his conscience disguiseth and dissembleth them and doth not confess them to God and to Men also if need require it shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall finde mercy Let your sins be of what sort they will of ignorance infirmity presumption those three Parables of the lost Sheep and the lost Goat and of the Prodigal may give you ground of assured hope after such confession and supplication for a pardon that thou shalt not fail to receive it and the sense of it Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord though your sins be as Scarlet they shall be as white as Snow though they be red like Crimson they shall be as Wool If convinced in your own Consciences you give glory to God by a free confession and fly to his mercy by faith and a lively conversion He will quickly cause you to feel by effect the forgiveness of your sins let them be never so grievous This is the Voice of the second of those general Laws I mentioned called the Law of Faith the Doctrine which offereth and promiseth remission of sins and salvation requiring only in order hereunto repentance and faith Repent ye and believe the Gospel The two great Gospel commands which you with whom I am dealing have been inabled by grace to yield obedience unto whereby you have made the Lord your Habitation Nevertheless they are duties which all the Days of your life you are bound to be doing To act both these graces every Day as there is occasion and there will be occasion for acting both while you have a Day to live to renew your repentance and to live by your faith as it is written The just shall live by his Faith The meaning is he shall live healthfully happily blessedly in which sence living is taken John 4. 51. 1 Sam. 10. 24. psal 38. 19. 1 Thes 3. 8. And that this is the Prophets meaning appeares from the scope and occasion of the words in the 1st Chap. he complains and expostulates in the beginning of the second the Lord answers the just shall have deliverance but it shall not be yet The Vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak and not lye though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come it will not tarry The Prophet might have objected and asked but how shall the afflicted Jewes be able to live in the mean season for Seventy Years together The Lord answers by a distinction the unjust puffes up himself with vain confidence But the just shall live by his Faith Whence it is evident that true Faith if well mannaged is able to keep a life yea to make him live healthfully and happily even in the worst and sadest times and to this conclusion these Scriptures give suffrage 2 Chr. 20. 20. Psal 27. 13. Dan. 6. 23. Esa 50 10. 26. 3. Heb. 10. 39. 2 Cor. 1. 24. And reasons grounded upon Scripture come in as Auxiliaries 1. From the Object of Faith namely the promises which are meet matter to maintain life Phil. 2. 16. John 6. 63. Jer. 15. 16. 1 Pet. 2. 2. Esay 55. 1. 12. 3. 66. 11. Cant. 2. 5. Job 15. 11. 2. From the Nature and Office of Faith which is to rest upon God's faithfulness for the performance of these promises it certifies and assures the Soul that all shall certainly be made good Psal 89. 34. Numb 23. 19. By this means saith gives a Christian actual present possession of all good things even in their absence Faith is the substance hoped for that is it gives substance to things that have no Beeing The evidence of things not seen that is that it both convinceth the judgment that such things must come to pass and it makes the mind conceive them really present Joh. 8. 56. 1 Cor. 10. 3. 3. From the fruits or if you will the Children and Daughters of Faith which are attendant on her and helpful to her in maintaining life namely hope which keeps the heart alive by expecting better when things are at the worst banisheth despair is compared to an Helmet and Anchor 2. Joy this is the juice of Faith the Souls strength banisheth sorrow eats up all Earthly griefs 3. Courage and boldness which expells fear 4. Love this makes bitter things sweet causing a cheerful willingness to suffer the hardest things for the sake of the party beloved 5. From a singular property and power that is in Faith to break through all difficulties leap over all carnal objections and remove all impediments Rom. 4. 18 22. Qu. How may we mannage our Faith so as to maintain this life of joy and comforts Ans Your care must be to make this sure not only that you are within the compass of God's special Covenant to them that are out of this belong no promises nothing but threatnings and curses but also that these special qualifications are in you which are annexed to particular promises the fruition whereof depends upon the practice of some choice part of obedience which if you neglect you do but presume and tempt God in making title and laying claim to them Compare Psal 91. 11 12. with Mat. 4. 6 7. 2. This done learn Four things concerning the promises 1. The matter which is supply of all good and deliverance from all evil 2. The kind or quality of them the principle promise indeed is absolute but all the rest are conditional these shall all be literally fulfilled for you so far forth as they may be subservient to that 3. The manner of propounding them some promises are expresly declared both general and special ones others are by consequence implyed in the examples or prayers of the faithful 4. The several wayes of God's performing his promises Sometimes he gives his People the very thing he promiseth Sometimes he denyeth that and gives them some thing equipollent proportionable instead of it or else that which he knows is far better for them 5. You must in every state of life when you finde need set your Faith on work both to fetch in provision out of the Word and to prepare it and to apply it 1. The way to bring in provision for the maintenance of life is by the memory whatsoever faith doth in the Soul it doth it by the help of this faculty Heb. 12 5 6. Forgetfulness is the cause of fainting in all time therefore of need when-ever you are brought to any streight that you can see no way of escape or means of relief but begin to faint and sink under