the Apostle says Rom. 10.3 They were ignorant of the righteousness of God therefore they went about to establish their own righteousness By the righteousness of God is here meant the righteousness of Christ as Mediator which he has wrought for us and to be imputed unto us a righteousness which God has prepared a righteousness which God imputeth and a righteousness unto which the Godhead did give efficacy and excellency though it be not the essential and infinite righteousness of God for if a Creature should be righteous thereby then it must be God 1 They see not the excellency of this righteousness that it perfectly answers the Law and that by reason of the Union with the Godhead and by this means it far exceeds the righteousness of the Angels and is far more glorious than ever we could have had if Adam had stood that we should be made the righteousness of God in him and that the matter of our righteousness should be the great things performed by him suffered by him imputed unto us and we thereupon reputed by an act of soveraignty righteous before God this men do not see and therefore they admire the righteousness of a Creature so much as Paul did his own righteousness by the Law but when he had but a glimpse discovered to him of the righteousness of Christ he does abhor his own righteousness for ever Phil. 3.9 10. That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness but the righteousness which is of God by faith There is the glory of the Lord to be seen in the glass of the Gospel 2 Cor. 3.18 which is by a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him Ephes 1.17 which till a man does see his heart will never be inflamed with admiration of the righteousness of Christ and with an instinct after union with him when God did let but a glimpse of this into Luther and he did but consider Rom. 1.17 That the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith Oh how he admired it and was ravished with it having never understood that Scripture before The Prophet Isaiah did wonder that all men did not believe in him and that so few were converted when he saw his Glory but the reason was they saw it not 2 Men are ignorant of the necessity of Christs righteousness for they come unto God in their own name and as Priests they offer up their own sacrifice they make a difference between themselves and others Luk. 18.11 I thank thee I am not as other men are But Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance all are sick all are sinners but yet they are not so in their own apprehension and therefore they see no such necessity of Christ wherefore men come to God and never consider this Can two walk together except they are agreed what fellowship can light have with darkness righteousness with unrighteousness and what fellowship can sin have with holiness Nay stubble and thorns with devouring fire and everlasting burnings My person wants a Mediator it is burdened with infinite guilt my Nature wants a Mediator it is overspread with universal defilement my Sins want a Mediator for they are without number and without measure sinful my services want a Mediator for they are full of iniquity even my holy things and therefore men can be content to live without the righteousness of Christ 3. Men are ignorant of the glorious state and condition of that soul that stands before God in the righteousness of God and who at the last day shall not be found in his own righteousness When the Apostle Paul saw it he counted all things dross and dung for it and I doubt not but if the glorious Angels in Heaven had it revealed unto them that it was the mind of God after they had stood so many thousand years that they should abandon all their own righteousness and now lay hold upon a higher and more glorious righteousness in his Son they would speedily do it and cast away all the services that ever they have done as preferring this righteousness far above their own and their condition therein above what it can be by their own righteousness For the righteousness of an Angel is but the righteousness of a Creature but the righteousness of Christ though it be only the righteousness wrought in his humane nature in obedience to the Law yet it is that unto which the Godhead gave efficacy The righteousness of the Angels hath in it a possibility of being lost they are not by nature impeccable though they are by grace God does charge them not with actual folly indeed Job 4.18 yet with possible folly but Christ as Mediator is impeccable unless we can suppose God to sin the union between the natures being personal actus est suppositorum acts are of persons and therefore unless a possibility of sinning should befall the Godhead the person cannot sin and so it is righteousness in an unchangable head which could never be in the Angels neither was it in Adam in the state of innocency And therefore blessed is the man whose unrighteousness is forgiven Now by the imputation of this righteousness without works he is put into a far more glorious condition than ever he should have been by the first Covenant if he had never sinned Believers having now a more glorious name not only the servants of God and the sons of God as the Angels are called but the brethren of Christ and the members of his flesh and bone a higher sonship not only sons by creation but by a mystical union having a part in the sonship of Christ he gives them the priviledge to be called sons of God a higher inheritance made co-heirs with Christ for it is said Enter into your Masters joy § 2. The second cause why men desire to be under the Law is a principle of enmity Rom. 1.21 They will not glorifie him as God All the lusts of mens hearts are ungodly lusts Jude v. 18. opposition to God and to his glory and any thing that exalts God and makes for his glory it is ground enough why the heart of man should be set in opposition thereunto In the second Covenant God is glorified in a far higher way than in the first for there are higher manifestations of God in the second Covenant Now glory is but the reflection of an excellency and therefore the more glorious the manifestation the more glorious must the reflection be God did manifest himself indeed in the first Covenant gloriously and yet God has set forth a larger systeme of himself in the second and put the Angels to study that by beholding the marvelous glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ therefore the Saints now glorifie God in a higher way than under the first Covenant 1 He had before manifested his wisdom in giving the Creatures a being and had raised out of nothing a glorious fabrick every thing in
purchased possession Act. 20.18 whether it be in grace or glory and therefore Christ looks upon all graces and all priviledges as part of his due from God the Father and that they should be bestowed upon them for whom he laid down a price And therefore we read that though Christ while he was upon earth was a man of sorrows and had little comfort in this World yet he did take delight in this the fulfilling of the promises unto him in the conversion of Souls and perfecting Saints When the Woman of Samaria was converted he said Luk. 16.20 'T was his meat and drink to do the will of his father he rejoyced in spirit that souls were converted and that the mysteries of the Gospel were revealed unto babes And Joh. 11.15 when he called Lazarus from the Grave they said he is dead and he said I was glad for your sakes to this end that you might believe he rejoiceth that there was an opportunity to add unto their faith and that it might grow and increase one degree more It was the joy of his heart to see of the travel of his soul Isa 53. And there are three things that Christ hath respect unto herein 1 His sufferings past and therefore he doth in his intercession always sprinkle his blood before the mercy seat his blood is a speaking blood he hath laid down the price and therefore surely he expects the purchase 2 It is the joy of his heart now he is in Heaven to see the graces of his people grow and flourish it is the meat that he is said to seed upon as we see Cant. 5.2 I have mingled my wine with my milk and eat my honey c. and thou art the fairest amongst women thou hast ravished me with one of thine eyes c. It 's a joy to the Angels when a soul is converted and a joy to the Ministers the Angels upon earth when they grow in grace and stand fast in the faith And if the servants and children of the Bridegroom rejoyce in it how much doth the Bridegroom himself rejoyce in it 3 In reference to the glory that is to come at the day of Judgement he comes to be admired in his saints 1 Thes 1. and afterwards he doth present the Church unto God the Father which some conceive to be the giving up of his Kingdom that God may be all in all and he shall have an eternal glory that shall be reflexed upon him from the Saints who shall sing for ever hallelujah unto him who is the head and King of Saints Therefore all these promises are made first unto him and do principally belong unto him and he is most concerned in them that if they be not fulfilled he shall be the greatest loser by them lose his sufferings past and his delight for the present and his glory to come so that in the performance of them God hath a special respect to Christ and they belong unto us and are fulfilled unto us only as we are in Christ and no otherways 2. There is in these promises an active and a passive a giving and a receiving 1 They are made unto Christ as the giver and unto us only as those that must receive all things from him the Oil is poured first upon his head Isa 53. and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand of his fulness we receive grace for grace he hath given him power over-all flesh John Ephes 5. Heb. 12.2 that he may give eternal life unto those that are given him he gives repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins he washeth them and sanctifies them for he is the prince of life Act. 3.15 the author and the finisher of our faith the Captain of our salvation that in all things he may have the preheminence 2 The passive part of these belong unto the Saints but it is as they are one with him and as they have an interest in all this grace received by their head that it may by him be dispensed unto them for 1 Joh. 5.11 he hath laid up all their life in him for all the promises are made unto his seed though in a different order and in different respects some promises made formally to him and some promises fulfilled in his members Object 2 This will bring Christ under both Covenants for we heard before Gal. 4.4 that he came under the Covenant of works he was made under the Law and now this Doctrine doth bring him also under the Covenant of Grace Answ Indeed no meer man can stand under both Covenants Gal. 4. no more than he can be born of two Mothers The two Covenants are the two Mothers and a man can no more be under both Covenants than it 's possible for him to grow upon a double root to be a member of the first and at the same time to be a member of the second Adam But the Lord Jesus Christ came under both Covenants Tit. 1.2 2 Tim. 1.9 1 The Covenant of Grace was made with him from all eternity and therefore there is a promise made and eternal life given us before the World began and it was in this Covenant that Souls were given to Christ all that he should save and therefore he hath a Book of Life Rev. 13.8 Those that were given him in Covenant he took their names and upon this Covenant he did rejoyce in the habitable parts of the earth before there was either earth or inhabitant Prov. 8.31 And it was the Covenant of Grace that was first made and was first intended as being stablished between God and Christ before the World began as a Parent may make a Covenant or take a Lease in behalf of his Child before he is born or in being but this Covenant was not actually to take place it being a Covenant of reconciliation and in the hand of a Mediator till the first Covenant was broken and then comes in the manifestation of the second Covenant life and immortality being brought to light by the Gospel 2 But when this Covenant was to take place Christ finds all mankind under the Covenant of their Creation and that broken and they brought under the curse of it and now the Covenant of Grace cannot take place unless he will come under the first Covenant and thereby abolish it the sin against the first Covenant could never be pardoned unless he be made sin and the curse of the first Covenant could never be satisfied unless he be made a Curse and the Covenant it self never abolished for any unless he be made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law as a Covenant that they may be translated Gal. 4.5 Only there is this difference Christ being under both Covenants man was first under the Covenant of Works and Christ came in in the second place as our surety standing in our stead paying our debt and therefore he puts his name to our bond
heart hast thou done these great things that is of thy own free grace and unexpected Love because thou wouldst have mercy and yet it is Mercy to Abraham but it is Truth to Jacob c. Mic. 7. v. ult and therefore Austin calls the promise Chirographum Dei Gods Bond it is the bond or hand-writing that God has given the creature to assure him of Heaven so that as the Apostle calls the Law Chirographum contra nos Col. 2. a bond against us so are the promises the bond that is for us because they do speak God to be with us 4. All this is through Christ both making and performing 2 Cor. 1.20 so it is in him that the promises are Yea and Amen as all the precepts of the Law though given to us yet they are principally required of Christ as our surety and the transgressions of them are laid upon him so all the promises of the Gospel though they be made unto the Saints yet they be primarily made unto Christ as our head and representative for as we have heard he is the seed with whom the covenant is made and he is given unto us as a covenant so he is primarily the Heir of promise and as in respect of possession Esa 49.8 we enter into his inheritance called our masters joy so in respect of the promise and reversion we come under his covenant and so partake of his inheritance and have no further any promise made to us than as we are one with Christ and no promise is performed to us but by virtue of union with him and therefore it's Christus in aggregato Christ mystical that is the proper subject of all the promises and their accomplishment is to himself as the head and to the Saints as the body § 2. Why doth Gods part of the Covenant in this life mainly consist in promises It 's true that these promises shall end in performances and Heaven is the accomplishment of all the promises it is a promised as well as a purchased possession when the Saints are all gathered home all the promises shall be at an end and therefore in that respect faith shall cease for the object of it shall be taken away and therefore the acts of it must needs come to an end though it 's true that the habit of faith as well as all other graces being a part of the image of God and the new creation of Christ is of an eternal nature but yet the Lord does mainly dwell with his people in a way of promise and the covenant on his part doth run in promises 1 Cor. 2.5 7. 1. The life that the Saints live in this world must be a life of faith and not by sight there is another life though we live by faith and not by sight here that in glory is reserved for us and another manner of living and the main objects of faith are the promises Rom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4.19 21. He staggered not through unbelief He did not reason pro and con about it because faithful is he that has promised and he will also do it he is able to perform It 's true there is a faith that rests upon the whole Word of God as true and good and so the soul receives it but yet the object of faith by which the soul rests on God is mainly the promise so that as obedience is the Law written in the heart so also the object of faith is the promise written in the heart the Lord lets in the promise and the soul rests thereupon and if the Lord had not dealt so in a way of promises our life could never have been a life of faith 2. They are the great grounds of our hope and thereby the Lord will sweeten our obedience he doth not give forth a bare command as an act of Soveraignty but he adds thereunto a promise as an act of Grace Heb. 6.18 The Lord willing to shew the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath that we might have strong consolation who are fled for refuge to the hope set before them which hope we have as an anchor to the soul And the Anchor is cast under water and takes hold of something that is not seen as yet for if I see it why do I yet hope for it Now though it 's true a godly man should not yield obedience meerly for reward yet a man may have respect to the recompence of reward and though it is true that this should not be the great thing that should launch them forth in duties of holiness yet this is a good wind to fill the sails the Lord letting him see that there is an inseparable communion of Gods glory and our good also duty and mercy 〈◊〉 hand in hand and that the Lord requires no duty but it is for our good always t◠he may perform unto us the promise that is annexed thereunto There is an amor merc◠〈◊〉 love of reward that is not mercenary Heb. 12.1 Christ had the joy set before him that did sweete 〈◊〉 sufferings he had a glory and a posterity promised him and Moses had respect also to the recompence of the reward Heb. 11.25 And the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.18 While we look at the things that are not seen that is the scope and the main aim of the soul in all our obedience active or passive and by this the Lord doth delight to sweeten our way 3. The promises are the great means of the souls purification 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us purge our selves having these promises and perfect holiness And by these great and precious promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature The promises are the Treasury of all that grace that God doth intend to bestow upon his people and from thence do the Saints fetch it Isa 12.3 for they are the wells of salvation and it is by this that the soul is fitted for the performance there is a being made meet and 't is the promise that made them so as a mans beholding of God in himself doth transform him perfectly into the image of God Col. 1.12 2 Cor. 3.18 so beholding God in the promise does transform a man by degrees into the image of that holiness that is in the promise A man looking upon himself sees his heart as a barren wilderness as empty of grace as the first Chaos was of form and beauty Now he says what is impossible with man is possible with God and the soul sucks a promise and is thereby changed into the image thereof 4. That they may be the rule of the prayers of the Saints for his will must be the rule of our prayers as well as of all other acts of our obedience the precepts of the one and the promises of the other we must ask according to his will if we hope to speed and therefore our prayers should be nothing else but pressing God with
c. which is to dispute and gather conclusions from false and corrupt premises because they were hearers of the word though they were not doers yet from this false principle they did reason and argue all their life time that their state was good and so did the foolish builders Mat. 7.22 Lord we have prophesied in thy name and in thy name cast out devils we have eat and drank in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets therefore there is no doubt but we shall attain an entrance at his coming and so the soul is under a fallacy all his days and this is the great deceit of the old Serpent to deceive a man in reference to his eternal state for as Satan by his instruments doth endeavour to beguile you in the matters of truth Col. 2.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he deceives a man by false reasonings so also he endeavours to deceive a man in matter of his state that he might deceive himself by false reasonings also and upon this ground it mainly is that there is that extraordinary aversness in the hearts of men unto the duty of self-examination and a far greater aversness to the examination of a mans state than of his actions for there are many men that will make conscience to review their actions and consider their ways and yet these very men are willing to go upon a supposition in the matter of their spiritual states and to be content to take that for granted though it be the ground of all And here we are to consider also that many that are true Believers may not know that there is a distinct interest in the persons to be had they in general do believe in God and close with Christ who is offered them in the promise but as for such a distinct title unto all the persons it is a thing that they are not acquainted with it seems it was this that Christ reproved in his Disciples Joh. 14.1 Ye believe in God believe also in me their faith in the acting of it was not so distinct and particular as it ought to have been As it is in witnessing there is many a man that never knew that there was a distinct witness of all the persons in the hearts of the Saints and therefore they did never look out for any such thing so it is in the point of faith also but now this is a truth discovered to you and the Lord will expect the fruit of Gospel-discoveries he will come and demand fruit of his Vineyard and he doth expect it he it is with whom Heb. 4.13 in the word read or preached that you have to do he looks what power it hath upon your hearts after it is dispensed 1 We are to consider that the way by which we can come to have an interest in all the persons is by closing with the Son for it is our union with the Son that as it gives us a title unto all good things so it gives us in the first place an union with all the persons and it intitles us unto them all it is he that hath the Son hath the Father also 1 Joh. 2.23 and he that hath not the Son hath not the Father for it is only the blessing of the second Covenant and it comes upon none but those that are in Covenant as the promises come upon none but those that are heirs of promise therefore we should first inquire whether we be one with the Son or no. Now there is no union with him but by believing in him for it is the eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood that gives us life by him Joh. 6.54 Now though believing be an act of the whole soul for the subject of faith is the whole soul with the heart man believes yet it is specially seated in the will as unbelief also is specially seated there There is a double infidelity 1 Purae negationis of pure negation which some have said is no sin but yet if there is a command to believe then bare not-believing is a sin because it is the transgression of the Law 2 Pravae dispositionis of depraved disposition and that lyes mainly in the will Now when the will opens aright it is unto two things 1 It does consent to receive and accept of Christ upon his own terms not only Christ with his righteousness but Christ with his graces not only Christ with his priviledges but Christ with his inconveniencies Christ to all the ends for which the Father hath ordained him he would have him glorified in them all in his heart 2 With the same hand of faith that he doth receive whole Christ he doth give up whole self unto Christ again so that he is his own no more but put out of his own power for ever and he rejoyceth in this that I am my beloveds as well as my beloved is mine he would have his happiness in him and he would enjoy nothing apart from him for ever he would live in him and bear fruit in him and work for him and be into him and that to eternity for he saith to him as Ruth to her mother-in-law Where thou goest I will go where thou lodgest I will lodge thy people shall be my people thy God my God and where thou dyest I will dye c. Where there hath been such an acceptation and such a resignation there the work of faith is wrought with power and he that is thus one with the Son is thereby madelone with the Father also for our union is by him as our access and communion also is all by him with the Father 2 If a man be intitled unto the persons there will be drawings out of his heart towards each person for there is an impression of the love of them all left upon the soul We love him because he loved us first and this love will warm our hearts with love again there will be the workings of it in the soul though there be not the witnessing 1 Joh. 4.19 for Phil. 1.6 there is a good work begun and it 's begun by all the persons and it is to glorifie the persons mainly in the hearts of Believers and therefore such workings the Lord will draw forth in them O that ever God the Father should give his Son to me Joh. 3. God so loved the world and that I should be called the Son of God that the Son should lay down his life for me should bear my sins and my sorrows that his Spirit should abide in me inlightning mine eyes renewing me in the spirit of my mind there will be such a spiritual warmth wrought in the soul towards all these persons because there is a principle of the love of them all kindled in the soul But yet 3 There will never be the fulness of assurance till the persons that have given you an interest in themselves do also themselves witness their interest 1 Joh. 5.7 and they will surely do
to a more particular acquaintance with sin and self therefore the Lord doth let such lusts rise up in a mans heart A man that haply never thought that he could be tempted to be an Atheist and deny that there was a God the Lord will let forth such sinful risings and motions in his heart that he shall be ready to call all into question and see that it is possible for the corruption of his nature to make him like that fool that saith in his heart there is no God and a man that never questioned whether the Scripture was the Word of God or no for it is the faith that he hath been brought up in which he received from his parents yet the Lord will let that lust rise in thee which may bring thee to question the authority of the Scriptures whether they be of God or no. There is in a man a principle that tends to a denial of the doctrine of godliness and this principle lies deep and works mightily in our lives and therefore that they may see that this root of bitterness is in them the Lord will suffer them to rise up unto actual thoughts and then the man will say I thought I should never have doubted whether there was a God or no or a Heaven or Hell or a Scripture but now I see to what my natural corruption is ready to lead me and by this means his soul is not only humbled for those bosom-principles of Atheism but these bosom-principles of Religion are laid anew and more firmly in the soul which else would not have born the stress of a work of grace upon them 4 That a man may be drawn out to hate sin the more therefore the Lord doth let it rise in a man and infest him As a mans darling lust that has risen in him most and most troubled him that sin when he is converted he hates above all other Hos 14.8 and so Rom. 7. there is not only the being of sin but the rising of it Rebelling against the law of the mind and leading me captive to the law of sin and death when I would do good evil is present with me that the soul may see its misery the more and so hate its adversary the more for to love God and hate sin is our great work and the more the goodness of â—od is discovered unto us the more we should love him and the further the evil of sin is discovered unto us the more our hearts should be ingaged to hate this also It is true a man should hate sin in the root hate it at all times but specially when it rises within us and presents it self to us with the greatest enticement as Christ hated Satan always but then specially when he assaulted him with a temptation to worship him so should we deal with sin as Junius faith of himself he being a modest man a wanton woman came to kiss him and he gave her a box on the face he hated impudence at all times but specially when it was offered him and so it is in this particular also when lust doth rise in the soul presenting it self to be chosen he hates it then most as wicked men hate godliness always but specially when it comes nearest unto them and they are pressed to it then their hearts rise against it 5 The Lord doth in his Soveraignty permit that lusts should arise in his people but it is to awaken them and the Lord makes this an excellent remedy against a secure condition for if his people will sleep God has three ordinary ways to awaken them 1 By letting out corruption 2 By affliction 3 By desertion it is the first of them is the worst because there is not a greater evil than sin and there is not any thing that doth use to affect the hearts of godly men and awaken them more than to find former lusts revivâ— in their hearts which they thought had been dead long ago A man has formerly set himself to mortifie such a lust and prayed against it and used all means and now he hath through mercy in a good measure attained it but the man grows proud and secure and carnally confident then the Lord lets his lust revive again and the man shall see that his enemy is not dead but that the said root of bitterness still remains only the Lord by his Soveraignty permitted it to spring forth for such an end 6 It is that which is matter of repentance to the people of God continually they are not humbled barely for the sins of their lives that break forth in their conversation in the world but also those sins that do arise in their hearts and they do apply the Righteousness of Christ for the one as well as the other and they are more humbled for lust rising in their heart if they could be separated than for lust breaking forth in the act because this defiles the inward man the soul and so it 's said of Hezekiah That he humbled himself for the pride of his heart so confidence in creatures is what we ought to be humbled for and weep in secret for our pride and repent of all the inward risings of sin in our heart though not any discovery of it be made in our lives and conversation § 4. 3. The Soveraignty of God is seen in the actings of sin also and therein it doth order all for the good of his people sin shall not be always kept within bounds as fire in the bosom but it shall appear in the life many times and the members shall become weapons of unrighteousness lust conceived shall bring forth sin as there are many thousand lusts stirring in the heart that do never come into act they are conceived but do never bring forth there is much plotting in the world against godliness but they do bring forth the wind Esau says I will slay my brother Jacob but he never did it and Gâ—hazi had in his heart a hankering after Vineyards and Olive-yards c. and so they in Neh. 4.11 We will come upon them and destroy them and they shall neither see nor know c. But the act doth not succeed accordingly there are many devices in the hearts of the crafty when their hands cannot perform their enterprise Job 5.12 and so the Lord doth with sin in the souls of his people but yet sometimes it shall break forth into act it was as new wine in the soul and the act shall give it vent it was secret but the Lord by an act will permit it to be visible and legible when it was in the soul it is but thirst in the desire but it is drunkenness in the act when it is come to the full and all this doth the Lord permit by a supreme providence for the good of his people 1 That they may see the power of sin and the tendency thereof it is such a filthiness as would overspread the whole man it is a leprosie in the
through him Have we then any thing to do with or receive from God in a covenant way but by this Mediator and union with him Did not God from all Eternity give his Son as the foundation of this Covenant to the Elect as also give them to him as a seed And is not this the true import of their being elected in him Is it not also hence said Tit. 1.2 That eternal life was promised to the elect before the world began How could it be promised to them but by this Covenant of Redemption with Christ their Head Did not the Church Christs mystic body lie hid in him from Eternity as Eve lay hid in Adam her head Are not all Believers by the Covenant of Grace in Christ as by nature we are all in the first Covenant And is not Christ in every Believer as Adam in all his natural seed How is the first Adam in us but as the original cause of our nature and its moral vitiosity which causeth death And is not Christ the second Adam in all Believers as the original cause of their restauration and life What is there good in man but what is first in Christ as the original Head of the Covenant and public Receiver Wouldst thou see Gods love and grace streaming towards thy soul Must thou not then first see it lodged in Christ as the Fountain of all Dost thou desire to see all thy sins wiped off Must thou not then see them first wiped off from Christ thy Representative Wouldst thou by a prevision of faith see thy self in a glorified state O then by faith look on Christ the Head of the Covenant as glorified for thee Alas if thou look on thy self in thy self growing out of thine own natural root what art thou but as a branch cut off from the Olive-root But O! how comfortable and sweet is it to see thy self crucified acquitted and glorified in Christ the Head of the Covenant Yea doth he not only become a surety for us to God but also a surety for God to us And O! how much doth this engage sinners to exalt this glorious Head and Mediator of the New Covenant Was not this the grand design of God in making this Covenant that his Son the Prince of it might be in every thing exalted Why are all the promises of the Covenant dispensed first unto him and all the duties of the Covenant required first of him and of us in him but that he may have the preeminence in all things and a name above every name That the Son of God and Lord of Glory should by his own consent in the Covenant of Redemption between him and the Father come under an act of Gods will and undertake in the fulness of time to take upon him the form of a servant to pay debts who never owned any that he that was Lord of the Law should be made under the Law that all the Elect should have their names transcribed out of the Fathers book of Election into the Lambs book of life Rev. 13.8 yea have their names written in his heart from all Eternity and thereby to have such a blessed Being in him so long before they had the least Being in themselves what an essential obligation are they hereby brought under to exalt this glorious Head and Prince of their Covenant 4. But let us discourse a little of the Nature of this second Covenant 4. The Nature of the Covenant as relating to Believers as terminating more immediately on Believers And here the Reader will excuse me if I studiously avoid the controversies of these times and touch only on that which is more essential to Faith and Godliness The Covenant of Grace as made with Believers has a twofold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitude or regard the one externe the other interne (1) As to its externe Dispensation which is The Covenant of Grace as to its externe Habitude and Dispensation admits some Variety Generality and Conditionality which is not applicable to the interne spirit and mind thereof [1] Various It admits of some Variety It has pleased the infinitely wise God out of his rich mercy and condescendence to the condition of his people in all Ages to suit the externe Dispensation of his second Covenant to their infirm capacity albeit as to the spirit and substance thereof it hath been ever the same Thus in the first promulgation of it to Adam after his Fall God expressed it by the seed of the woman and its bruising the serpents head c. Gen. 3.15 which was a form most agreeable to their present state introduced by the Serpents subtility and craft So in the second promulgation of this Covenant unto Noah after the Floud Gen. 9.17 God expressed it by the Ark and Rain-bow c. as it 's repeated Esa 54.9 which were symbolic Images very apposite and agreeable to their preservation newly obtained The like Variety God manifested in the repetition of this Covenant unto Abraham Gen. 17.2 to 16. where God promulgates his Covenant as to its externe Habitude under the symbolic forms of multiplying his natural seed the sign of Circumcision c. which were â—ll lively figures very much adapted to his present state he having no children So again when God renewed this Covenant with the Israelites after their coming out of Egypt what variety doth he use Is not the very Prologue to it touching their deliverance out of the house of bondage an illustrious Symbol to mind them of their miserable state by the first Covenant What were all the Sacrifices but federal Symbols representing to the life mans sin and misery under the first Covenant and reconcilement to God by the second So also for the moral Precepts with which this Mosaic Covenant was ushered in of what use and intendment were they but to make way for the promulgation and advance of free Grace as John Baptist made way for Christ It 's true some of late from this variety have started a Notion of a threefold Covenant one natural another legal or Mosaic and the third Evangelic but this Notion was the figment of the old Origenistic Monks to establish their Antichristian merits as Melancthon Chron. lib. 4. assures us The true Idea of the Mosaic Covenant seems this it was indeed as to its interne spirit mind form and essence Evangelic albeit as to its externe form and dispensation it was mixed and composed of moral Precepts and symbolic Types or shadows and O! how agreeable was this to the infantile state of the Israelitic Church Did not the wise God herein act like a curious Limner who first gives an adumbration and dark shadow with a rude Pencil and then adds lively colours to compleat his Picture What were all the Types but Evangelic shadows whereby the Grace of the second Covenant became visible and sensible [2] Indifferent and general The Covenant of Grace as to its externe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and dispensation admits of some
whereas men would turn away their eyes from their sins the Spirit of God does hold them upon it and set them in order before them and whereas men would have slight apprehensions of sin and wrath the Spirit of God does give a man great apprehensions and dreadful thoughts of them and as in Heaven the spirit of Adoption shall be in perfection so in Hell the spirit of bondage shall be in perfection also 4. God gives a man up unto the power of sin and the dominion of it that a man is not his own but yields up himself and his members instruments to unrighteousness Rom. 6.18 He gives over himself to obey sin and the lusts thereof man sells himself to sin sinfully and God sells him judicially c. That as a godly man is not his own so neither is a wicked man For his servant a man is to whom he obeys whether it be of sin unto death Rom. 6.16 or of obedience unto righteousness and therefore they are the servants of sin Now sin has a double power 1 of a Lord as it reigns over men which unto godly men is taken away 2 As a Huâ—band Rom. 6.14 that 's a power of love that it can command and a man has an inward affection to obey it as it is said of Ahab he did sell himself to work wickedness Rom. 7.3 and then God sells a man to wickedness and the man is become wholly the servant and the creature of such a lust Every man by nature indeed does sin freely but some men are left to a judiciary freedom in sinning that as they cannot restrain themselves so God will not restrain them from sinning but they shall pour out themselves to all iniquity with greediness Jude v. 11. they shall be as wicked as they will that so they may fill up their measure of sinning as Christ said of the Pharisees Fill up the measures of your fathers it 's spoken by way of wrath and vengeance the Lord did give them up to the power of sin to the uttermost Rev. 22.11 He that is unjust let him be unjust still and he that is filthy let him be filthy still This permission is the highest and forest affliction And there the Church leaves them that are obstinately ignorant and resist instruction 1 Cor. 14.38 He that is ignorant let him be ignorant Now for a man to be thus given up by God and his Church is a most desperate condition As it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God so it 's a fearful thing to be given up to his own hearts lust To be given up to sin is a just punishment of sin for the ways of sin as well as the wages of sin is death It 's a dreadful thing for the Lord to say of a people appointed to wrath Jer. 15.2 Let them go forth such as are for the sword to the sword and such as are for the famine to the famine but it is more dreadful for God judicially to say let them go forth such as are for drunkenness unto drunkenness and such as are for uncleanness unto uncleanness as much as sin is a greater evil than affliction and as much as it is better to suffer than to sin 5. God gives a man up to the power of Satan and his own will 2 Tim. 2.26 The Devil is compared to a hunter and men are by him taken alive as we do beasts in a snare and then carried whither the hunter will though God be not the author of sin yet he is the orderer of it as well as of suffering and as he sets bounds unto Satan in our affliction as Job 1.12 All that he has is in thy hand only upon himself lay not thy hand so he does in our temptations also He will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able 1 Cor. 10.13 Satan would indeed tempt you above what you are able but God will not suffer you so to be tempted It 's a fearful thing for God to give a man either in his body or estate over to the will of the Devil as we see in Job how sad was it with him in that regard but much more for God to give over a mans spirit to Satan to carry a man unto what sins he will then I am sure he will be boundless in his sinning as well as in his suffering It 's an observation of Damascene that it 's only by sin that Satan has access to the spirits of men and therefore he did tempt Adam and Christ himself by outward objects only presented to the senses which is a great argument that he could not have access to their spirits Joh. 14.30 The Prince of this world says Christ comes and has nothing in me The more Satan has in a man the more immediate access he has to him and the greater power over him therefore the less of Satan there is in a man surely the less power he has over him But besides the possession and dominion that sin has given him there is a delivering a man unto Satan a kind of spiritual excommunication by God himself as Christ by a sop gave Satan full possession of Judas Joh. 13.27 and though before the sop he had it may be some reluctancy to that damned business yet after it Satan had full power over him and he goes on with a resolution and an impudent boldness and says Whom I kiss he it is for he was delivered over to the will of Satan to carry him unto what sin he would And so we may observe of the false Prophets in Ahab's time and them also that are mentioned in 2 Thes 2.12 and such men as Tertullian observes he raises to a higher degree of wickedness the Devil vouchsafed them greater and fuller power he speaks it of Marcion Valentinus and other Hereticks Satan brings them to those sins against God that he himself cannot commit 6. All Providences and Ordinances and Operations of the Spirit become a curse to them and a snare to their souls Prosperity makes them full and deny the Lord and poverty makes them steal and take the name of God in vain Prov. 30.8 If a man be raised from a low estate as Saul and Hazael it is in wrath and if he be preserved in a common judgment it is in wrath as God raised up Pharaoh That he might shew his power on him and send all his Plagues upon his heart and if there be a Prophet sent to Jeroboam a judgment lights on him in his way back because he was disobedient to the word of the Lord 1 King 13.33 yet thereupon Jeroboam turns not from his abomination Every act of Providence is to them for evil and a snare to their souls and all the Ordinances that they do enjoy do but ripen their sins Amos 8.7 there is a fullness of curse as well as of blessing in the Gospel and it 's a favour of death as well
content to be under it and seek righteousness and life thereby if they do follow the Law for righteousness and submit not to the righteousness of God and this be interpretatively and in Gods account a desire to continue under the first Covenant still though it be not formally and directly so then this clears the justice of God in two things by way of Vse and Application 1. That the Lord doth unregenerate men no wrong if he leave them still under the first Covenant for he does but give them the desire of their own hearts All the Heathens therefore that sit still in darkness and in the shadow of death that never heard of another righteousness in which they might appear before God but their own to whom the righteousness of God under the Gospel even the righteousness of the new Covenant the righteousness of God by faith was never made known The giving of the knowledge of this righteousness and this new Covenant unto some and hiding it from others was grounded on no precedent differences and dispositions in the man either to whom it was revealed or to whom it was denied it was only the Mystery hid in God in his own Will and in his own Counsel And the same good-will that was the cause of the revealing it to the one was the cause also of the hiding it from the other Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 3.9 Mat. 11.25 and revealed them unto babes For the Lord leaves them under that Covenant under which they did desire to be and under that righteousness by which they did desire to establish themselves and to be justified and did not reveal unto them the second Covenant which they had an inward disposition to despise and the righteousness thereof unto which by nature they could not submit Therefore it is riches of compassion that he has revealed it unto any but it is exceeding just that he has hid it from any And for those that live under the Gospel and have the tenure of the second Covenant made known to them and the glory of the righteousness thereof discovered and yet accept it not submit not thereunto it will be enough to clear the justice of God at the last day that they are left under the first Covenant under which they did desire to be and therefore as it is justice with God to leave a man under Adam's image and under the power and dominion of their own lusts to give them unto the power of their own hearts lusts and suffer them to walk in their own counsels and to say Ephraim is joined to Idols let him alone and he that is filthy let him be filthy still so it is just with God also to leave men under Adam's Covenant and to seek righteousness and life thereby and so not attaining to the law of righteousness they perish under the curse thereof for ever 2. He shall do no man wrong if in the general Judgment he do proceed against men according to the rules of the Covenant of Works for he will surely deal with men according to the tenure of the Covenant under which they stand and every man is under that Covenant which he desires to be 1 If they have all their sins laid upon their own score and give account for every vain thought in the heart and every vain word in the mouth every sinful purpose of the heart for he will bring every work to judgment with every secret thing and not a drop of the blood of Christ shall go to wash away the least of their sins and transgressions therein they must bear their own sins and their own shame and it is just with God for their Covenant admits of no Mediator 2 When God shall reject thy best services for the failings that are in them and look upon thy righteousness as a filthy rag abhor thy prayers for the noisome savours that be in them and they be turned into sin because thy person is not accepted thy Covenant is not changed the Lord will tell thee thy Covenant requires perfect obedience and if thou dost well thou shalt be accepted if thou dost evil sin lies at thy door and all thy services are but as if a man did bless an Idol and offer swines flesh and as if a man did cut off a dogs neck for thou art not in a state of acceptation thou art not found in his beloved Son in whom alone he is well pleased 3 When thou shalt have none to intercede for thee Joh. 17.9 and to plead thy cause before the Lord he prays for no such I pray not for the world as soon as thou shalt peep out of the Earth in the day of the Resurrection and lift up thy trayterous head out of the grave thy Conscience shall condemn thee thy heart shall fail thee and he also that is greater than thy Conscience Then shall the King say I was hungry and you gave me no meat c. and then thou shalt look for Christ to plead thy cause but thy Covenant admits no Advocate thou must plead for thy self which because a man cannot do having nothing to say he shall be speechless for ever 4 Then thou wilt repent and say I have perverted righteousness and it has not profited me for there shall be sorrow enough perfect sorrow in Hell even weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth but God can accept no repentance thy Covenant as it gives no repentance Revel 2.21 so it promises no repentance no acceptance and the time of repentance is past there is but a time of it 5 Thou wilt expect Christ as a skreen to stand between thee and the fathers wrath Gal. 3.13 for under the second Covenant he was made a curse for us but thy Covenant admits no surety the soul that sins shall die there is no ransome paid for thee for being under this Covenant either the Law must be obeyed but that it is not for thou art a sinner or else it must be abrogated but that it is not for not an Iota of the Law shall pass or it must be mitigated but that it is not for it is inflexible the Law is holy and just and good and remains the same that is was to Adam in the state of Innocency the curse must be executed the penalty inflicted even indignation and wrath upon every soul that does evil c. 6 When you shall look to have your services rewarded as mens Religious duties are the great actions of their lives and therefore men have the greatest hopes grounded upon them Phil. 3.7 it was in Paul's account gain to him and he did expect a reward answerable now when the Lord shall reject them and say that the inheritance is not by the Law since the Law became weak through the flesh but the inheritance is by promise and all comes by the second Covenant this can be no wrong to any unregenerate man
produce any such effect but rather the contrary for it doth forbid sin upon the highest penalties it has upon it an impress of the Holiness of God and is contrary to sin in all things being holy and just and good and in its proper causality does work holiness in the hearts of men and a conformity unto the will of God as the rule of Goodness as it appears in the Saints all the grace that they have is nothing else but the Law written in their hearts which is the grand promise of the new Covenant 2 There is causa per accidens an accidental cause when the effect flows not from the nature of the cause but from something else that does by accident cleave to it so the Apostle says knowledge puffs up all true knowledge is humbling and there is nothing that a man can know either of God or himself but it does afford him great ground of abasement and self-denial but yet through the lusts of men sin takes occasion by the knowledge that should humble him to lift him up so fountains are hottest in the Winter and the fire by reason of the cold of the circumstant air not that the Winter does add heat to either by its own nature but by accident and occasionally inclose the one and draw forth the other so the Gospel meeting with the lusts of men who either reject the Gospel or else do turn the grace of God into wantonness thence it becomes the savour of death unto death not of it self nor in its own nature for it is the word of life and salvation so does the Law draw forth sin not of its own nature for it forbids it and curseth it but yet sin takes occasion by the Law and through many things that do adhere and cleave to the man by the Law it does become the more exceeding sinful Let us therefore come unto the proper causes how it comes to pass that sin by the Law which is good should take such an occasion of evil The causes are many 1. One cause of it is lust There are in lust many things from whence it flows but especially these 1 Lust is carried towards its object with earnestness violence and vehemency there is a lifting up of the soul to vanity and the hearts going after covetousness and therefore some render that of Laban when Jacob departed and he saw that the hope of his gain was gone Gen. 31.20 Deut. 29.19 Amos 2.7 Eph. 4.19 Jude 11. that he stole away the heart of Laban And as a godly mans desires are for God and Grace so a wicked mans desires are after sin and he thirsts and pants after it and it is therefore exprest by greediness as we may see it in Shechem Amnon and Ahab after Naboth's Vineyard All these set forth the violence of lust how fully the soul of man is carried after sinful objects and the ground is because sin looks upon sinful objects as the husband of the soul as the chief good and therefore is carried after them modo infinito in an infinite manner as a God therefore they are said to serve mammon and their God is their belly and they are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God Rom. 7. and therefore desire them infinitely the sinner is never satisfied but like the barren womb crys give give his desire is as Hell and the Grave it never has enough Now whatever comes in the way as a bar unto that which his soul does so infinitely desire it is no wonder if his heart rise against it with an answerable violence If Naboth come in the way of Ahab's Covetousness his life is little enough to make satisfaction and if any man stand in the way of Haman's honour his life and the life of a whole Nation is but a fit sacrifice to expiate so great an offence Now the Law of God putting a stop upon such vast desires therefore the hearts of men do rise up against the Law in opposition answerable to the desire that sin hath unto the object from which it is stopt by the prohibition of the Law 2 Lusts are proud and do swell the heart and cause it to be lifted up Psal 10.4 The wicked through the pride of his countenance doth not seek after God Obed. 3 The pride of thy heart has deceived thee And this fills the heart with a great deal of obstinacy and stoutness of spirit against God and contempt and scorn of whatever comes in his way to resist it as we see in Pharaoh even against the Lord himself Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice And answerable unto a mans pride and exaltation of spirit such is the rising of his heart against any thing that makes against him and the more full of lust any man is the more the pride of his heart is drawn forth for he is thereby made the more conformable to the Devil who saith I am a God and so do all mens lusts say and therefore the heart is lifted up as a God answerable to the pride of a man such is his impatience 3 Lust is resolute this proceeds from the two former it will go on whatever come of it Ephes 2.3 Hos 9. in despight of all opposition There are wills of the flesh as great resolutions as if there were many wills in one as a wild ass alone by it self i. e. that has neither rider to command it nor bridle to restrain it will venture any-where Jer. 8.7 They go on in their own ways as the horse rushes into the battel Christ warns Judas The son of man goeth indeed as it is written but wo to him by whom the son of man is betrayed it had been good for that man that he had never been born And yet Judas went forth and from that time he sought an opportunity to betray him If the Lord make hedges about a soul yet he will labour to tread down all with the greatest resolution and with the highest contempt as we may see it in Pharaoh after all his plagues yet his heart was hardened that is his will remained obstinate and he resolved not to yield unto God come what will come yea though death to himself and destruction upon his Kingdom did ensue And therefore they say What thou speakest to us in the name of the Lord we will not do Jer. 44.16 but we will do whatever proceeds out of our own mouths And if any thing come in the way to cross them in this resolution men resolve to oppose it see it in Saul 1 Sam. 22.17 Go and kill the Priests of Jehovah which some have made to be the sin against the Holy Ghost and Job 15.26 They do prepare themselves thick-bossed bucklers they resolve to make resistance they harden their hearts and stiffen their necks though the law of God set the sin and the evil before them yet men despise it and fear not the danger let it be of temporal judgment they say
a principle of life within or else a principle from without either weights or springs as it is in Clocks or Watches which makes the motion so many men may move to duty and abstain from sin not from an inward principle of life in the one or the other but from a weight without 5. There is in every unregenerate man a sinful and unrenewed heart deceitful above all things Jer. 17.10 and desperately evil a heart fully set in him to do evil and because this is natural therefore his heart is fully bent to go this way so that let him be constrained to do duty yet he will hate the duty that he does and count it a weariness and look upon it as a burden Mallet non facere si posset impune and say When will the Sabbath be gone And let him be kept from sin yet he will love it still if you chain up a Beast from the prey yet his inclination will be after it and keep the stone from the Center and force it up into the air as often as you will it will still return and when it comes down to the earth and can descend no further yet it will have a tendency thereunto So Conscience thâ—â— is meerly natural counts it its misery and affliction to be kept from sin for restrain it from sin never so much it will at last break these bounds and will be carried on with the greater fury greediness and violence because of the former restraint that was put upon it and the Devil will enter with seven worse spirits the dog will return to his vomit and the latter end will be worse than the beginning it had been better that man had never known the way of righteousness for he will be more wicked than if he had never known it Thus let the man have a heart set upon lust and let the power of the Law come into his Conscience acted by the Spirit it 's no wonder if it so far over-awe the man as to restrain him from sin and constrain him to duty § 2. But is a godly man that is under the Covenant of Grace wholly freed from the Coaction of the Law Answ This distinction was laid down in the beginning that though the main part of our Christian Liberty consists in being freed from the Law yet this liberty is in this life either inchoata or perfecta in respect of justification and condemnation A godly man is perfectly freed from the Law as a Covenant but in respect of Irritation and Coaction he is freed from these effects of it only in part We have seen how far the Irritation of the Law remains even in the regenerate and it is like lime which does quench those fires sometimes kindles 〈◊〉 Sin while it does remain and is acted by Satan may take occasion by the Commandment and produce woful effects even in the Saints so for the Coaction of the Law they are not wholly freed from it so far as they are unregenerate and the law of the flesh remains in their members the Law is of use to them and a handmaid to the Gospel and they do and ought to make use of legal motives to constrain to duty and to restrain from sin and the Law is to be preached to the regenerate to this purpose Heb. 11.25 1. To constrain to duty many times The Saints are to make use of the Law and the good things thereof so did Moses he had respect to the recompence of reward and the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 5.9 We labour whether present or absent that we may be accepted of him for we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ and knowing the terrour of the Lord we perswade men Again Heb. 12. ult Let us have grace to serve him acceptably for our God is a consuming fire These be the helps that the Lord has given us and it were our sin not to make use of them there is no man but he finds so much deadness and backwardness in his flesh that he shall be forced to call in this help many times Mark 9.44 2. And to restrain a man from sin also Christs exhortation is Cut off your right hand and pull out your right eye for it 's better to go to heaven maimed than having two eyes to be cast into hell where the worm dies not c. And if Adam in the state of Innocency had need of the threatning of the Law to deter him from sin much more a godly man that is holy but in part Yet there is a great deal of difference 1 in a godly man this is not the only principle that acts him as it is in the unregenerate for an unregenerate man would never do duty while he lives were it not from this Coaction of the Law out of a principle of self-love and natural conscience for he does duties as a godly man commits sins and he must say that which I hate do I but in a godly man there is another principle also there is a law of his mind an inward disposition the law written in his heart a new and divine nature and his obedience to God is natural to him as it is for a tree to bring forth fruit in its kind and a fountain to cast out mud and to work out any thing that is contrary to it 2 As this is not the only so it is not the main principle that works in them but there is the Spirit of Christ that dwells in them and leads them and there is a law of love that does mainly act them in all they do 1 Joh. 5.3 they abstain from Sin as from Hell and that which they see all evil in and as that which is dishonourable to God and defiles their own beauty for Sin is the souls deformity as Grace is the ornament of the soul and he does duty from an ingenuous and free spirit And therefore Christ says Take my yoke upon you for it is easie Whence so far as a man is regenerate he is a law unto himself and he would be kept from sin and carried on to duty if neither of these were but only from a principle within 3. The more a regenerate man is acted by legal principles and the less love he has to spiritual duties the less spiritual he is and therefore his desire is always to be led by the Spirit of God and he always prays to God for his free Princely Spirit SECT III. The APPLICATION § 1. WE may hence learn what a miserable estate a man is in being under the first Covenant every thing is a burden to him because it is a constraint upon his spirit the thing he does he hates he has a contrary principle within him which he would indulge and gratifie Now there being in a man the same nature and the command of God lying upon a man this may and this does commonly put a force upon him to perform duties of the law but that
shewed many ways â—â—w we will speak a little to the sin of it and that in these Particulars 1 Hereby thou endeavourest to make void the Covenant of Grace and all those gloriâ—us thoughts that God had towards sinners from everlasting as the highest way to glorifie himself He did therefore purpose it in himself and from himself Prov. 8.30 Psal 40.5 that he will gloriefie himself this way by a second Covenant and God delighted in it and spent infinite thoughts about it it 's the pleasure of the Lord and all this thou dost make void to thy self by continuing under thy former Covenant and if thou accept not the Grace offered in the second Now the Apostle speaks of it as a fearful evil to make void the Law but how great is their â—vil that do their utmost to make the Gospel void 2 Thou hereby at once frustrates the whole end of Christs coming into the world for â—he came into the world as a second Adam with a Covenant and an Image and no man can partake of his Image unless he have an interest in his Covenant for all the Promises of renewing the Image of God in man are not the promises of the first but of the second Covenant Mal. 3.1 Heb. 12.24 Heb. 7.22 and it 's he that is in Christ that is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5.14 For he is given as a Covenant to the Nations The Lord shall come speedily into his Temple even the messenger of the Conant in whom ye delight So that the great end of Christs coming into the world is that he might bring in a second Covenant by which God and man may be reconciled sins pardoned and the sinner saved and whosoever is not translated into this Covenant Christ is come and dead in vain as to him 3 Thou dost hereby reject and despise the greatest grace that ever was shewed to the sons of men for God to enter into a Covenant with man in his Creation was an act of meer Grace God might have required obedience and have promised no recompence for all was by right of creation due from man to God but God did not owe any thing to man again and yet this was but faedus amicitiae a Covenant of Friendship but when man had sinned and become faedifragus a Covenant-breaker now for God to try man again by a second Covenant that it should be a Covenant with man as a sinner is a far greater act of favour to be engaged to him Isa 26.18 19. and that upon higher terms and better promises it 's the admiration of all the Angels in Heaven that God should so far honour a sinful creature as to take him into Covenant with himself Jer. 13.11 Zac. 11.10 4 This is much heightned by this that the Angels that fell were as capable of mercy as we and Christ and his Righteousness as proportionable a good for the Salvation of the Angels as he is for man though they did sin ex destinata malitia maliciously and without temptation Bernard and so perire necesse est poenitere potentes yet had the Lord set his thoughts of mercy upon them and sent his Son with a Covenant to them The same Omnipotency that overcomes the heart of a man could have also overcome the heart of a Devil but he did catch at Mankind when he let the Angels go and never made them the offer of a second Covenant and this mans sin is beyond that of the Devils in that he refuseth to come under this Covenant of Grace 5 Hereby thou takest the name of God in vain and receivest no benefit by all his Ordinances and Promises and motions of the Spirit that thou enjoyest 1 All his Ordinances for to what end is the Ministry of the Gospel set up and appointed by God but only in the first place to bring men into Covenant with God God is in Christ reconciling the world and how is that done why by making a covenant of peace as this second covenant is called Ezek. 37.26 And by perswading men and treating with them to bring them under the bonds of this covenant 2 Cor 5.18 19. for as the Apostle says He has made us the ministers of reconciliation and all the offers that we make unto you of Christ it is but to perswade you to accept of him as God has given him as a covenant to the Nations and until you do accept of Christ in his covenant and consent to that you can have no other benefit by him that will be effectual to the saving of your soul And as for all other benefits of the Ministry without this they will never answer the great end for which the Lord appointed it It were but a low end in a Minister to propound no higher thing to himself than this that he might inform the judgments of men and draw them to some outward conformity or civilize men and to do some duties to satisfie their consciences but our end should be that which God did send us for and to count that we have laboured in vain Act. 26.18 if we miss thereof and that is to turn men from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God to translate men out of the kingdom of darkness into the glorious kingdom of his dear Son the greatest mercies of your lives be offers of Christ and his benefits which are all grounded upon the covenant of Grace 2 All the Promises do belong unto the second covenant and he has given us exceeding great and precious promises 2 Pet. 1.4 whereby we are made partakers of the Divine nature There are promises of pardon and of grace and holiness and happiness promises of the life that now is and that which is to come There are conditional Promises and there are absolute Promises I will be thy God I will give thee my Son and my Spirit I will take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh But the bottom of all these is the Covenant and thereunto all the Promises of the Gospel are referred and therefore he that has no interest in the Covenant he in applying a promise takes the name of God in vain for if you be Christs you are Abrahams seed Gal. 3. ult and heirs also of the promise If you are Christs and are in him your Covenant is changed you then come under Abrahams Covenant for it is in respect of this Covenant only Rom. 4.16 Gal. 4.28 that he is said to be the father of us all and if your Covenant be changed you are heirs of the Promise We as Isaac are children of the promise c. And till a mans Covenant be changed there is not a promise in the Book of God that belongs unto him and whensoever he does apply them unto himself he doth wrest the Scripture and he takes the name of God in vain c. 3 As for the Sacraments whosoever has not his Covenant changed they can
ad omnis generis flagitia sicut ergo hominibus obsessis vincula catenae injiciuntur ne quem laedant sic toti mundo qui est obsessus a diabolo adest Deus legibus cohibens manus pedes ne praeceps ruat in omnis generis flagitia 2 The Lord has set bounds unto the sins of the World as well as unto the sins of particular persons and Nations which when they have by degrees filled up judgment shall come upon them to their destruction As there was a fulness of sin when the Flood came upon the world and it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth so there is a fulness of sin when the World shall be burnt and when all the wicked have filled up their measure then shall the fire of Gods wrath be kindled upon the World unto which it is reserved Only then when the World was drowned because there was a holy seed remaining upon the earth the Lord did spare the earth for Noahs sake because there was a blessing but when all the Elect of God shall be translated from this earth to Glory then there shall be an utter destruction and the earth shall be burnt up at least refined by fire Now if there should not be a restraint laid upon the lusts of men every one that is now a Serpent would become a Dragon and they that now sin as men would act like Devils and the measure of mens lusts would be quickly fulfilled and the end of the World would be suddenly hastned Now because God has appointed a time that the World shall stand for Gospel ends and to shew forth the Grace of the Gospel that mercy may rejoice and triumph over judgment therefore he does restrain the lusts of men that the fulness of the sin of the World may be filled up by degrees 2. It does exceedingly exalt the Gospel and the Grace thereof that it does make such a use of the Law as is unto man fallen above the nature of the Law and contrary to the use that sin does make of the Law 1 It is above the power of the Law unto man a sinner for the Law is become weak through the flesh Rom. 8.4 as we see they that know the Law yet pour out themselves to all excess of riot and give themselves over unto all manner of abominations He that says thou shalt not commit adultery doth himself commit adultery c. All this shews that the Law of it self is weak it can forbid sin indeed but it cannot restrain it as it can require duty but it cannot enable a man thereunto but as Bernard has observed It commands without grace and it punishes without mercy Restraining Grace in respect of sin and assisting Grace in respect of duty comes not from the Law but from the Spirit that is given in the Gospel working with it 2 It is contrary to the use that sin makes of the Law for sin takes occasion by the Commandment and the Law is so far from being a means of restraining lust that by the Commandment corruptions are improved and increased Rom. 7.8 11. the flood rises the higher by the damm that is made against it and there is this devillishness in sin that it does take occasion by the Commandment to deceive a man that is it does work in a man a greater apprehension of the sweetness of it and a greater desire to it and longing after it because it is in the Commandment forbidden and from the very prohibition does arise the strength of the temptation a man should never have had his heart so much carried out after it if the Lord had not forbidden it and then a man says Stollen waters are sweet and the bread of deceit is pleasant Now when Satan and sin shall take occasion by the Commandment to improve corruption and to draw it forth that the Spirit of Christ in the Gospel should make a quite contrary use of it to restrain it and bind it up it does much exalt the power of the Gospel and the spirit of the Gospel which works with this Law 3. Restraining Grace which the Spirit of God does work in a man by the Law is of great use and does mightily exalt the Grace of the Gospel in preserving from open violences and immoralities 1 In reference unto the Saints that they are not destroyed for they are sheep in the midst of wolves their souls are amongst lions and therefore it is a wonder that they are not destroyed it is God that lays a restraint upon their enemies lust sometimes and they desire it not and sometimes upon their acts and they cannot effect it Abimelechs lust was restrained in reference to Abraham I kept thee that thou shouldst not touch her And as to Laban God laid a charge upon his spirit and so it was with Herod in reference unto John the Baptist and it is by this restraint laid upon the hearts of wicked men that the lives and liberties of the people of God are preserved and this is every day as great a miracle in some respect as to set bounds to the Sea that it do not overflow and as to stop the Lions mouths or to hinder and restrain actum secundum the second act of the Fire in the Babylonish Furnace that it did not burn so much as the garments of the three Children and that your peace and prosperity and that the progress of the Gospel is not interrupted that the Devil does not cast some of you into prison and seek your blood as in time past it is not that he is not as truly the Destroyer still as in times past but the Lord restrains the lusts of men that he cannot act them and draw them forth as he has done formerly 2 In reference unto wicked and ungodly men that live in their sins and perish in them Though it is true while the corrupt will prevails and a mans enmity to God remains so long is a man a sinner before God in every thing because he is in his habitual frame of heart an enemy unto all righteousness Austins Epist 144. But it is a great common mercy that wicked men have by the Gospel that their lusts are not let out to the uttermost and the greatest judgment that men can be given over to is to be given up to their own hearts lusts delivered over unto the power of sin and to be acted by Satan to the highest and the utmost as Judas the Devil entred into him it was but a higher degree of acting of him in a way of wickedness The restraint that is acted upon them lessens the guilt and does not spread so much in the defilement the act of sin does intend the habit Nor is it so dangerous and infectious unto others for sinners in their actions are corrupters and by their example taint many with evil ways and words the more their restraints are the less will their judgement and condemnation be and
gives up himself unto it as the perfect law of liberty that wherein his happiness lyes this is that which makes the yoke easie and the Commandment not grievous and the ground of it is because the Law is written in his heart and this is to serve Christ in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter not barely to have a duty in the letter injoined which is that which only prevails with other men to perform duty whilst all that is in their heart is against it they do it and yet hate the duty when done and the Law that injoins it but here is the Spirit of God renewing and working in a man such dispositions of heart which answer the duties of the Law in all things so that a man loves the duties and the Law that commands them as setting him about a service that he is pleased with so that it is the Law that is the yoke of Christ and it is writing it in his heart that makes it an easie yoke In putting the Law as a rule into a mans heart the Spirit of God doth let a man see 1 The Holiness of the nature of God Ephes 4.24 for man was in this created after God neither did the Creature behold the Holiness of God any other way than in the Law which doth forbid the least blemish and defilement all filthiness of flesh and spirit 2 Herein a man sees the glory that was stampt upon him in his creation for his heart was nothing else but a perfect copy of this Law created in it and in this conformity in his inward man to the Law of God did this image principally if not wholly consist 3 This is a perfect resemblance of the Holiness that was in the humane nature of Christ in whom the Law was fulfilled for there was no sin in him He knew no sin neither was guile found in his mouth he was a lamb without spot or blemish he was a living Law 4 This is a perfect copy of that conformity unto God that is in the Saints and souls of just men made perfect When he shall appear we shall be like him 1 Joh. 3.2 The law of his mind shall be perfected and the law of the members wholly destroyed Now we are conformable to the will of God but in some degrees for that perfectio graduum perfection of degrees is to come but the Spirit of God will go over our hearts and write more and more of this Law in us till we be made in all things answerable thereunto And in our conformity to the Law glory being nothing else but Grace perfected shall our conformity unto God in Heaven be where we shall not be like God in part as here we are but shall be wholly conformable to him which is the perfection which we strive for and aspire unto and therefore the Scripture calls this our perfection Paul saith 2 Cor. 13.9 I long for your perfection that is a perfect writing of the Law in the heart and this fits a man for Gospel-Ordinances and the perfection hereof is the reward of the Gospel for the Law written in the heart is the foundation of all obedience unto the Law and the perfect writing the Law in the heart is the highest reward of all the Promises and all the obedience of the Gospel § 2. As the Law is a rule within being planted there by the Spirit given in the second Covenant which does change a mans nature and doth give a man inward dispositions suitable thereunto a law of the mind so is the law a rule to guide and direct a man in his way unto which all the Saints are to give heed from which they are to learn their duties and by which they are to judge of all the ways of God and the ways of the world the Law is added unto the Gospel Fides efficit quod lex imperat as the rule to the hand of the workman the rule is able to do nothing of it self it is a dead thing it is the hand only that does the work and if the hand can do nothing aright without the rule the Law can work nothing being dead without the Grace of the Gospel that only inabling a man to perform all acts of obedience and yet the Grace of the Gospel does inable a man to no other obedience but that of which the Law is the rule Christ himself tells us that his intention in coming was not to destroy the Law of God or put an end to it or make it void Mat. 5.17 Think not that I come to destroy the Law or the Prophets and interpreters of the Law Now there are in the Law but three things to be considered either it is for Justification for Condemnation or for Direction Now for Justification unto all that are in Christ it is by Christ abolished no man is justified by the works of the Law but by the Grace of Jesus Christ and for condemnation also for he hath delivered us from the curse of the Law and was made a curse for us There remains now no other proper use of the Law but for Direction as it is a rule and therefore either Christ has destroyed it wholly or else he will have it remain in this last sense and so the next vers 18. tells us Heaven and earth shall sooner pass away and the whole frame of this world fall to pieces before the Law shall pass away therefore it doth remain for Direction unto the Saints unto the end of the world So Rom. 3.31 the Gospel does not destroy but establish the Law the word in the Greek doth signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to strengthen and make a thing firm that was falling before so by the sin of man the Law became weak through the flesh neither to be fulfill'd in the precept of it or the curse but men must be for ever satisfying it now the Gospel comes and it makes the Law firm 1 In our Surety for in him is the precept fulfilled and the curse born he did fulfill all righteousness 2 In us because by the Grace of the Gospel we do attain strength in some measure to obey the Law which is encreased more and more till in our nature and actions we shall be made perfectly conformable unto the Law in Heaven and so the righteousness of the Law perfectly fulfilled in us the Lord perfecting his good work that he has begun in the day of the Lord so that the Law remains as a rule to Believers being not abolished but established by the Gospel 2. The Gospel sends us unto the Law as a rule of duty Luk. 16.30 31. They have Moses and the Prophets the Law and the Expositions of the Law and the Lord requires Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul as well under the Gospel as under the Law And Jam. 1.25 He that looks into the perfect Law of
your right Hand and pluck out your right Eye deny your selves that nothing shall be exalted in the heart but Christ and nothing must be dear to a man in comparison of Christ he must sell all to buy the Pearl Matt. 13.45 and part with it with joy not only part with a mans sins but his righteousness and priviledges and take them up by a new title as Paul he suffered the loss of all things Phil. 3.8 9. but found them all in Christ and attained them by a far better and more glorious title A man must do it as you do in Copy-holds a man must bring in his old Copy into the Court and there must be a surrender made and then you shall take it up again and have a new and a better state in it c. A man must part with sin as a snare and with self as a sacrifice and lay them all down at Christs feet he must be his utmost end that gives order and measure to all the means tending thereunto c. 3. The will of man is desperately shut against Christ and against this way of closing with him partly from a mans ungodliness because it is the highest way in which God will be honoured and partly because a man hates the terms and conditions that Christ must be received upon a man cannot give up all unto Christ sin is sweet and self is dear and the great God of the world the Idol that a man has worshipped all his life time now for a man to come and change his God it is that which the will of man is hardly brought unto and therefore Christ puts it upon the will John 5.40 You will not come to me who ever will let him come and take of the water of life freely Rev. 22. I would have gathered you but you would not The Lord does knock at this everlasting door and men bar the door against him and harden their hearts and will rather cleave to the Law and seek to patch up a broken Covenant and will venture their eternal estates upon it nay if they be convinced that there is no life to be had elsewhere they will venture to sit down in a state and way of death rather than they will come unto Christ that they may have life 4. When the Lord brings a man into the bond of Christs Covenant and he becomes an heir of Promise there is an almighty power put forth upon the will to perswade it and to open the heart to accept of Christ and to be subject unto him upon his own terms Gen. 9.27 The Lord shall perswade Japhet to dwell in the tents of Sem which all the rhetorick of the Angels in Heaven and Ministers the Angels upon Earth could never do none but the Spirit of Christ can open the heart it is alone in his power that has the Keys of Hell and Death Ut velimu sine nobis operatur cùm volumus nobiscum cooperatur August de Grat Lib. arb Chap. 17. Phil. 3.8 praebendo vires efficacissimas voluntati giving power to the will to choose Christ and so determining a mans will upon this glorious object that a man seeing Christ to be the chiefest of ten thousands he also desires him and so by preventing grace he does work the will and by assisting grace he works the deed that a man chooses the Lord for his portion and as that which above all things he desires to injoy and place his happiness in and unto him he cleaves with full purpose of heart for ever Act. 11. 23. And thus a man looking upon Christ as the person in whom there is a Covenant and an Image laid up and seeing the glory of that Covenant and the beauty of holiness that is in that Image of both he desires to be made partaker but there is the greater excellency because the person goes with them there is an excellency in the dowry but there is more in the person the soul thus accepting of Christ and catching at the terms of the Covenant as a dying man does at any thing looks upon it as a golden Septer held forth to him by the law condemned and as the brazen Serpent exalted upon the Pole to a sin-stung soul and the heart does greedily and with all its might take hold of it as a man would do a Cord let down as the only means to pluck him out of a dungeon or to save him from drowning and perishing Now to give you some arguments to inforce this that men should take hold of Christs Covenant 1. He is given by God the Father as a Covenant to the Nations Isa 49.8 And it will prove a high act of unthankfulness not to accept of him as a gift from God their sin was much aggravated John 1.11 John 1.11 He came to his own and his own received him not a man does not receive Christ that does not take him in this manner as offered by God the Father as a Covenant our ends in taking of Christ should answer Gods ends in giving of him now God did give him as a Covenant and an Image and we should receive him for both those ends and the Lord has used all means to inforce you to it that you may lay hold of this Covenant he did so with Adam at first Adam still thought that his former Covenant continued and would have given life and therefore he still had a mind to the Tree of Life but God to let him see there was no hope by that Covenant sent an Angel there with a flaming Sword and all that man might come to Christ â—ev 2.7 who is the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden of God and came in the place of the old Tree of Life and he hath taught men that by the works of the Law no flesh can be justified and that that way to Heaven is stopped and that door barr'd for ever God sets the guilt of sin and terrors of the law upon any man that would be justified by his works 2. It is Christs Covenant and therefore lay hold of it for Christ is the standard of all excellency and the more any thing relates to him or holds forth of him the more glorious it is The second Temple was more glorious than the first because of Christs presence in it and John Baptists Ministry the greatest of all that were born of women and yet the least in the Kingdom of God was greater than he and therefore to you that believe he is precious 1 Pet. 2.7 and when he shall raign over Israel and they be converted to him he shall be the glory of his people Israel How should we therefore lay hold of him and take him as worthy of all acceptation 3. Consider the glory of this Covenant 1. In it thou hast an interest in God in all the persons in Trinity for I will be thy God is the grand promise thereof Now to have the Lord for a
one with the Son and to enter into the same Covenant with them and in their own persons that he hath established with the Son it doth highly honour the Saints and exalt the grace of God towards them also 3. That the Lord might bind men unto him more firmly in a way of obedience and that the obedience might be made the more sweet Man was bound unto God by a bond of creation and from whom he had his being unto him he did owe his service but the Lord will bind him unto him with a further cord and bond of stipulation the one was natural and necessary and the other voluntary and though he did owe obedience had there been never a promise made him of a reward yet much more when the Lord will bind himself by Covenant to reward his meanest services The ground of the Covenant is love Deut. 7.7 8. 2 Cor. 5.19 Jer. 31.3 Hos 2.19 and God loves the Saints also in his Son and is willing to be reconciled to them in him and a man may say the yoak of Christ is not only easie but profitable also Matt. 11.29 because it hath a promise annexed to every service and for this cause was the Covenant made with the Saints that they might be a willing people in all their obedience there being a promise going with the duty in whatever was required of them 4. That the people of God might exercise faith in their prayers putting these bonds in suit that the Lord hath made over unto them when they look upon themselves as sons of Abraham Heirs of Promise and Children of the Covenant c. and thereby they come with a great deal the more boldness before the throne of grace as David 1 Chron. 17.23 24. Let the thing thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and his house be established for ever do as thou hast said that thy name may be magnified for ever the Lord of Hosts is the God of Israel even a God to Israel For because thou hast told thy servant that thou wilt build him an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray before thee now Lord thou art God and hast promised this goodness to thy servant let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant that it may be before thee for ever for thou blessest O Lord and it shall be blessed for ever have respect unto the Covenant for all the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty Reason 2 2. There is a Covenant made with the Saints also that they may see that they are as strictly bound to obedience in their own persons under the second Covenant as they were under the first Covenant and that the doctrine of the Gospel though it be a Doctrine of liberty yet is not a Doctrine of licentiousness there is as much of duty required of us now as there was then and so far as we come short of the Law we sin and every such transgression is so far as it prevails a Covenant-breaking on our part and an act of unfaithfulness but the Covenant cannot be broken because we have a surety which the first Covenant had not and the righteousness of this Covenant sin can never spend it is an everlasting righteousness therefore that Doctrine that saith God requires all of Christ and nothing of you is a Doctrine of sinful liberty it 's true That he takes satisfaction in his Son and he makes you accepted in his beloved and therefore he will never suffer his faithfulness to fail for Psal 102.28 Thou art the same and the children of thy servants shall continue c. yet in point of duty he expects from us uprightness and perfect obedience so that it is your sin and unfaithfulness if you perform it not as it was required of the first Adam so of all his posterity and as of Christ so of all his posterity also 3. That the Saints also may stand in awe of the threats of God under the second Covenant it 's true there is no curse there for it is a covenant of blessing but yet there is a double anger in God paterna hostilis ira simplex redundans c. I will visit their offences with a rod and that with many sharp and lesser trials and yet my Covenant I will not break they shall be the sure mercies of David still therefore Psal 119. he saith Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me because God had in Covenant undertaken to preserve him to his kingdom therefore he could not else have been a faithful God and there is also a faithfulness in the threatning executed as well as there is in the promises performed and that the hearts of the people of God may stand in awe thereof therefore it is necessary that as they should remember all duty was not so performed by Christ but that there is duty also in their place required of them and all suffering was not so undergone by Christ but that there may be suffering reserved for them also though not as a part of the curse of the first Covenant nor for satisfaction yet as the threatning was for their unfaithfulness under the second Covenant so it is inflicted for their humiliation and sanctification § 3. Wherein lies the difference between the Covenant made with Christ and with us 1 It was made with Christ primarily as a publick person for all the Elect but it is made with every one of us in the second place as we are members of Christ and so being in him we come under his Covenant 2 It is made with Christ immediately and for his own sake there was no mediator between God and Christ 2 Sam 7. Dan. 21.9 but the Lord accepted of his ingagement and relyed upon his faithfulness in performing his duty as Christ did upon Gods faithfulness in fulfilling his promise and whatever the Lord performs unto us it is for Christs sake but it is with us mediately in him he being the mediator of the Covenant and of all the mercies thereof 3 The promise made unto Christ was made from everlasting before the foundation of the world 2 Tim. 1.9 Rev. 13.8 it 's said The Lamb had a book of life before the foundation of the world it cannot be understood of election for he himself as mediator was elected therefore it is spoken in reference to this Covenant that God did make with Christ before the world was Prov. 8.22 he being from the beginning and this Covenant was to take place immediately after the fall but the Covenant with his people is made with them when they believe and are ingrafted into Christ faith being nothing else but a consent unto the Covenant and the terms of it on our part and therefore that is an act done by the creature in time when a man is converted and therefore notwithstanding the Covenant made with Christ yet the elect themselves Ephes 2.12 till they be converted are said
heed lest any of us fall short of the grace of God and lest there be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 For there is nothing that the heart of man is more prone to than backsliding and therefore we had need be often admonished to keep firm to the Covenant under which we stand for there is not the greatest cheat in the World that is in falseness and unstedfastness like our hearts wherefore we need many bonds upon it and should have regard to the cords of love that God ties us with to himself in this Covenant 2. We had need be exhorted to it from the slothfulness and heedlesness of our spirits in whatever is good though we be bound unto it by so many bonds the Lord hath always respect unto his Covenant and we desire he should do so now we had need to have respect always to the Covenant and to be continually minded that we forget not what the Lord our God requires of us as 2 King 10.31 it was a brand upon Jehu That he took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord his God Heedlesness in a mans carriage to God is a high provocation to walk with God at an adventure without respect unto the Covenants and great ingagements in which you stand to God Lev. 26.23 Hos 7.8 this is to be towards the Lord as a Cake not turned which is baked only on one side and no more therefore we had need have the more frequent admonition to take heed lest any man fall short of the grace of God we ought to give the more diligent heed lest by any means we let slip the things that we have heard and had need to be warned to cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart and to desire of the Lord that he would fix and unite our hearts to fear his name as the Psalmist doth Psal 86.11 Let these things quicken any secure Soul that goes on in any way of disobedience unto God for thou wilt pay dear at last for all thy wanderings from the paths of this Covenant and thou shalt experience it an evil and a bitter thing to draw back from God 3. That you may be quickened to seek unto the Lord for Grace to keep this Covenant and may acknowledge before the Lord that the stability and eternity of the second Covenant lies not in us nor in the observation of it for as much as in us lies we do break it continually but from the eternal love of God and the inseparable union between Christ and us and the Lord having made him the surety of the Covenant therefore it stands but were we left unto our selves we should break it every day and every sin in us would spend all the grace of the Covenant as it did in Adam but there is without us a fountain for a supply for truly the stability of the Covenant doth not proceed from our part in the Covenant as the Lord says in Ezekiel Ezek. 16.61 that the mercies he would give them should not be by their Covenant but all proceed from his and therefore Hos 10.12 it is sow in righteousness and reap in mercy and it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in ore Hos 10.12 in the mouth of mercy that is according to the measure of mercy The mercies and blessings of the Covenant God doth dispense not according to the proportion of our righteousness and stability of the Covenant but according to the proportion of his own grace manifested there and there is no argument that is more effectual amongst men than this As one came unto a Prince and desired him to perform a Covenant and ingagement that he had made unto them which he refusing being in his Robes the Soldier touching his Purple said Imperator hac veste indutum mentiri nefas est O Emperor it is not lawful for him who his clothed with this Robe to lye 4. We had need be continually minded of the Covenant that we may fear those sins that do come nearest a Covenant-breaking It is true there is no sin of a Godly man that can break his Covenant as I have already shewed you but yet there are some sins that come nearer to Covenant-breaking than others do and in this respect are to be looked upon as sins of a very hanious nature and of a deeper dye c. This is a rule That which doth manifest the most unsoundness of heart that doth break the Covenant for the condition of the Covenant is that a mans heart should be perfect with God Gen. 17.2 And it is one of these sorts or I may say both these sorts of sinning that do come nearest thereunto 1 when a man doth sin against light and doth it deliberately and with a high hand for Eo magis peccatum quo magis voluntarium The will is the measure of all sins The more of the Will there is in any evil the greater the sin is and therefore it is made the measure of the sin against the holy Ghost Heb. 10.26 it is sinning wilfully after a man hath received the knowledge of the truth and in this David came nearest to breaking this Covenant 1 King 15.5 He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Vriah David had many other sins lay upon him and he says his iniquities were gone over his head and as a sore burden for him to bear but the Lord said he turned not aside from the Lord in any thing but this because it was a studied plotted sin committed against knowledge and therefore with a high hand thus to sin did manifest the greatest unfaithfulness of Davids spirit towards God that he did show all the days of his life 2 When a man walks on in a sin and lies in it a long time together unrepented of and can act it again and again and it is as a thread drawn through the course of a mans life it comes nearest to an unsound heart and that denominates a man an Adulterer or an Adulteress as James 4.4 as we see in Solomon he lived a great while in these evils and though he were beloved of the Lord yet his heart was turn'd away from following the Lord and he said to his heart Go to now and I will provoke thee with wine Now his lying and living in sin it is true did not break the Covenant between God and him yet it was the most dangerous step to an unsound heart and therefore came nearest to breaking the Covenant A godly man cannot lye and live and dye in any known sin but he may live in it long and be continually insnared and turn away to folly but the more it is thus with thee the nearer thou dost come unto Covenant-breaking with the Lord. But what shall I do to keep
Covenant with the Lord knowing the falseness and instability of my spirit the duties are many and it is impossible for me to observe them all Take these directions 1. Get a true heart Heb. 10.22 Let us draw near with true heart a true heart is a heart perfect with God that 's the condition of the Covenant though your ways be party-coloured yet if you have the answer of a good Conscience i. e. when your heart doth inwardly answer to what you do profess and there is not a root of bitterness left in you that draws you back from the Lord this is a true heart It is called the Girdle of truth Ephes 6.14 Ephes 6.14 and that is as I should understand it not doctrinally but morally practically full of stedfastness and stability of soul in the discharge of all the ingagements wherein we stand bound unto God without shrinking or tergiversation as it is the sin in the practice of too many professors both to God and man there is a vein of dissimulation runs through their conversation they will dissemble love to persons behind whose backs they will accuse and represent them as persons blame-worthy and through the self-flattery that is in their spirits they will strive to lessen the excellencies and vertues that are in others that they may shine the more in the esteem of men and hereby they manifest they love the praise of men more than the praise of God and herein they may have their reward though it will bring in but little comfort when they come to dye or when they râ—flect upon this great condition of the Covenant which is to draw near to God with a true heart Isa 11.5 For this faithfulness is a noble girdle it was Christs and therefore it should be ours it is this truth in the inward parts that will keep the Covenant that it shall not be broken notwithstanding thy daily failings Heb. 13.9 Act. 11.23 Psal 86.11 2. Desire of God a stablished and a fixed heart To have the heart stablished with grace is a good thing and with full purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord. And the Psalmists prayer is Vnite my heart to fear thy name my heart is fixed O God c. And there is not a greater spiritual judgment in this life than to be given up to a light vain and unstable soul that is moved with every wind of Doctrine or with every wind of temptation when a man is carried to and fro to have the heart still fluctuating and be sometimes fixt upon one thing and sometimes upon another and unsetled in the principles of Grace such as are unstable shall not excel 3. Exercise faith upon the Grace of God in this Covenant which is eternal love and have an eye unto the surety of the Covenant in whom only it remains sure for it is an ordered Covenant and therefore sure and for this cause Christ is called the Covenant it self Isa 49.6 he is given as a Covenant to the Nations to establish the earth because in him only all the stability of the Covenant is to be found Consider in the time of affliction what a sweet thing it will be and what boldness it will give a man before God when he is able to say Though thou hast smitten us in the place of Dragons and covered us with the shadow of death Psal 44.17 yet have we not gone back from thee nor behaved our selves falsly in thy Covenant and when at death a man shall look over to the common-wealth of another World and shall be able to say Lord remember that I have walked before thee all my days with a perfect heart my heart hath stood to the Covenant and I have not chosen any other Lord though in many things my ways have not been answerable unto the rule of the Covenant Vse 3 § 3. Now having entered in this manner into Covenant with God it is our duty to have respect unto our Covenant and to improve our interest in it in all our ways The Covenant is to run through our whole life for it 's a Covenant for a mans life it being a Marriage Covenant and In matrimonio est perpetua quaedam servitus In matrimony there is a perpetual kind of servitude a Woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth Rom. 7.2 and David puts all his hope in the Covenant 2 Sam. 23.5 his happiness consisted in it and all his joy and delight his soul did run out upon this Covenant and from hence all his joy came in There are in Scripture several ways of sinning against this Covenant 1 There is transgressing the Covenant like Adam Hos 6.7 Hos 6.7 There have they dealt treacherously against me c. which is taken Two ways either as Adam they have broken the Covenant in which they bound themselves or else as Tremelius hath it they have broken the Covenant as if it were the Covenant of a man and as if they had to do with man in it and not with God 2 It is rejecting the Covenant 2 King 17.15 to despise it as a poor and unworthy thing not to be regarded by them 3 There is forsaking the Covenant as a thing that they are not bound by neither will they be bound by any longer Deut. 29.25 Mal. 2.8 10. And then 4 there is corrupting the Covenant and profaning it They have corrupted the Covenant of Levi that is the Covenant of life and peace which God made with him they have corrupted the Law and they have profaned the Covenant as if it were a common and ordinary thing for to profane is to make a thing common 5 There is a dealing falsly in the Covenant Psal 44.17 which signifies to lye to a man and deal treacherously with him in a Covenant made when a man pretends fair and doth the quite contrary there is no trust to him no hold upon him 6 There is Deut. 4.23 Deut. 4.23 forgeting the Covenant Take heed says Moses lest you forget the Covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you Now when a man in Scripture is said to forget a thing Verba sensus significant cum affectu effectu The words of sense signifie affects and effects God is said to forget men when he doth not appear for their help Psal 13.1 How long wilt thou forget me O Lord and hide thy face from my troubles We are said to forget God when we do not honour him as God and are not affected towards him as becomes a God and so men are said to forget the Covenant of God when they have not those affections as so great an ingagement doth require do not know and improve their interest in it as they ought to do do not make it as David did all their salvation and all their delight and therefore 't is said Psal 10.5 he is always mindful of his Covenant that is
promise now mercies that are the fruit and birth of the promises are the sweetest for they are children of the promise that are children of the Covenant Zeph. 2.2 and the promise of God doth as well travel with mercy as the threatnings of God travel with judgement seek the Lord before the decree bring forth it is not to be understood de decreto Dei occulto sed promulgato of the secret decree but of the sentence declared in Gods word as Calv. observes and so do the promises bring forth also now a man that is an heir of promise should walk in the expectation of it that his heart may be fit to receive it continually Jer. 11.4 5. and that God may perform unto him all that he hath spoken obey my voice do all that I command you that I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your Fathers The true reason why we many times fail of the mercy is because we are not prepared for it and our heart is not in a frame for Covenant-mercies and therefore doth the Lord defer them and wait to be gracious Esay 30. for mercy is like unto cordials given unto foul stomachs which do but increase the peccant humour sometimes Deus non exaudit propitius God doth not hear in mercy and sometimes exaudit iratus he hears in wrath c. it will not be given in mercy but in judgement if unto a heart unprepared for then duty becomes duty to us when our hearts are prepared to receive the command and a man can say O Lord my heart is ready and then mercy doth become mercy when the heart is prepared to receive it before the mercy come and the mercy of the Covenant doth consist in both giving the mercy and preparing the heart to receive it fitting the vessel and then filling it Now a frame of heart fit to receive mercies consists in these particulars 1. A believing heart relying upon the grace of the Covenant notwithstanding all seeming impossibilities and so Abraham though his body was dry and Sarahs womb dead yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did not dispute and reason the case pro and con and looked not at the probability of the thing but at the grace of the Covenant Psal 118. and the love and power of God therein so David many bulls are come about me they compass me in on every side but they are extinct as the fire among thorns for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them c. and I shall not dye but live and declare the works of the Lord. As Luther when all the world was up in arms against him as it were odium impetum totius orbis sustinuit yet he saith vincet mea audacia in Christo ultimum illorum jam pallentem furorem brevi efficiam ut anathema sit esse papistam My confidence in Christ shall overcome their fury they be men that are fit to enter into Canaan and to receive the promise of the Covenant that can say of the sons of Anak and the Cities walled up to Heaven we can overcome them they be bread for us their defence is departed from them their Rock is not as our Rock c. 2. When a soul is kept watchful and in a continual expectation of the promise I watch for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning he did expect God should come Psal and therefore though he did tarry yet he would watch for him and he doth set himself upon his watch tower Luke 12.35 and this is for a man to stand having his loyns girt and his lamp burning as one that expects the return of his Lord from the marriage and he opens to him immediately Surely it is such a soul that God will pour out the mercies of the Covenant upon he will make him sit down to meat and gird himself and serve him c. Whereas we go without mercies many times because mercy is offered and we are not ready to receive it the Lord knocks and goes away again the soul doth not open a man cannot say my heart is prepared Cant. 5. looking for and hastning to the coming of the day of the Lord 2 Pet. 3.13 3. When a mans heart though in expectation of the mercy yet is weaned from it and resigns it unto the will of God whether he will bestow it or no whether in this life he shall have the mercy he desires or whether he will pay him all in the life to come if he have the mercy now he does not look upon it as his portion but only as solatium a solace a viatick for his way as if he be deprived of them fit exercitium justi injusti supplicium Prosper de vit contempl He has the exercise of the just and punishment of the unjust And so David was in expectation of the Kingdom for it was one of the sure mercies of David yet it is said Psal 131.1 2. His heart was as a weaned child to prepare him for that mercy God had weaned him from it before ever he should injoy it and it is a noble frame of heart to be always in a readiness to resign a mercy before a man has the possession of it and to be contented to let God take as well as give what his soul waits upon him for 4 When a man desires a mercy no further than it may make him holy for the Covenant of God is a holy Covenant Luk. 1.72 and the mercies of the Covenant are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 13.34 which is the word that the Septuagint doth use Esay 55.3 and Luke renders it according to the translation and not according to the Hebrew that which in the Hebrew is mercies they render holy things and indeed mercies they cannot be unless they tend to promoting holiness in the soul and when a man with Agur fears mercies lest they should draw away his heart Prov. 30. give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient he feared the snare that is in prosperity the hook that is in the bait with which many a man is taken and thereby drawn away from the things of God and few are as Jehosophat who had Silver and Gold in abundance and his heart was lifted up in the wayes of the Lord 2 Chro. 17.6 his heart was incouraged the more in a way of holiness and when a man desires mercies quae nos ornare possunt pariter munire which may as well fortifie as adorn us Prosper The soul of a child of God desires he may have mercies that may be his defence as well as his ornament there are mercies that do adorn men but they do also insnare them and betray them to the enemy nay such a soul desires Heaven not so much for the perfection of his happiness as for the perfection of his holiness which nothing can perfect but the beatifical vision when he shall appear we shall
mercy to thousands in them that love him and keep his commandments Thus God extends Covenant-mercy not only to parents but to their children also and that to succeeding generations and we must not limit the grace of God for that were to limit the holy One of Israel For Answer hereto 1 if the meaning here be of the priviledges of the Covenant which are conveyed by the parents unto the child then if any of them were godly from the beginning of the world this Scripture will intail Church-priviledges upon them by a lineal descent unto the end of the world for it 's likely there shall not be a thousand generations from the beginning of the world to the end thereof because these are called the latter times wherefore this is but a certain for an uncertain number and therefore in this case we must know where to stop there must be a period put that a man may be able to say none of them was holy in the second third or fourth generation and therefore now the federal holiness that was this mans or this childs is expired 2 If it should be understood of Church-priviledges and a federal holiness that descends upon the child from the parents then how shall this promise and threatning be both made good for it may be some of the Ancestors have been godly but the immediate parents are wicked and profane why may we not as well and much rather say that God will visit the iniquity of the immediate parents upon the children as that he will shew mercy unto the children for the grace and holiness of their remote parents 3 Of what mercy soever it 's thus understood whether of saving mercies or of outward blessings it 's plain that it 's only unto those children which walk in the same ways of holiness with their parents for God will visit the iniquity of the parents upon the children and if his hatred to children to the third and fourth generation be of them that walk in the ways and wickedness of the fathers then his mercy to thousands is upon them that walk in the ways of their fathers obedience So much I conceive the last words imply vers 6. Shewing mercy to them that love me and that keep my commandments if this be the meaning it will be easily granted that the children of godly parents who walk in the same ways of holiness with their parents shall obtain mercy from God unto many succeeding generations but that is nothing to the thing in hand which does suppose children to grow wicked and to degenerate from the holiness of their parents and yet men would infer that their fathers priviledges do unto many generations descend unto them which I conceive is far from the scope and intent of the Holy Ghost Object 2 But the Israelites were circumcised though their immediate parents were wicked of which the instances before given are many and therefore our children should be baptized though the immediate parents be wicked and if the profaneness of a Jew did not prejudice the childs right why then should the profaneness of a Christian take away the childs title are not our priviledges as large as theirs In answer hereto Answ 1 of Circumcision there was no set Officer appointed by God to administer it and therefore commonly the parents did it and it 's plain by those that write their stories that women did it commonly now there being no set Officer to administer it there was no set Officer to suspend it But in the Christians Baptism it 's not so there is a set Officer who is to administer it with judgment and as he is to deny it to none to whom it belongs so he is to dispense it to none but such to whom it belongs 2 The Lord took the whole Nation of the Jews into a Church-covenant and they became a peculiar people unto him and whoever was born of that Nation was therefore born a Church-member and had right unto the priviledges of the Church it is not so with any other people under Heaven there is something more required to make a man a Church-member than barely to be born of such a Nation and therefore while they continued Church-members though they were never so profane and wicked this could not prejudice the priviledge of the Church And though such deserve to be cast out yet as long as the Church doth through negligence or connivence continue such in a state of membership they cannot deny them the priviledge of members but yet it doth appear that now under the Gospel many men that live in the Church are not true members of the Church or if they be cast out then they and their children are justly deprived of the priviledges of members because it doth not belong unto them and though the posterity of Ismael and Esau did use Circumcision after they were separated from the Church of God yet it was unto them only a vain and an empty sign and no Church-ordinance neither was it unto them a Church-priviledge any longer than they continued Church-members 3 This seems to be demonstrative that none are to be looked upon as within the Covenant and to have right unto the seals but Church-members and that the Church-membership of children is a priviledge that they receive from their immediate parents only and that it 's not barely a parents being baptized and making a profession of Christ that doth de jure give him a right to membership and therefore if parents profess Christ and yet are not to be looked upon as members of the Church then Calvins rule I think will hold He that is not a Church-member himself cannot convey a right of membership unto his children Here are three things to be proved 1. That none have a right to the seals of the Covenant but those that are members of the Church This Calvin in an Epistle to Mr. Knox clearly asserts Semper attentè cavendum est ne profanetur hujus mysterii sanctitas quod fieri certum est si promiscuè alicui conceditur vel quispiam recipitur qui inter legitimos Ecclesiae cives numerari nequeat Therefore they that are baptized must be Cives Ecclesiae those that have a title to membership for the Ordinance of Baptisme is profaned if it be applied unto any other and the clear grounds of it are these The scals are the priviledges of Church-members only and if they be administred unto any whose priviledge they are not they are certainly profaned for Christ admitted none but Disciples Act. 2. and his Disciples afterward admitted none but Disciples They that believed were of one heart and they continued in breaking of bread and prayer c. and afterwards when the Church grew more corrupt and more remiss that such were admitted who did manifest they had no right unto this priviledge they were looked upon as spots in their feasts and it was judged a dishonour unto that Church And for this cause in the primitive times
vent it upon all occasions but he cannot do it himself but it must be by Instruments as the Devil casts men into prison by Instruments Revel 2.10 now when he meets with fit Instruments for his work and God in judgement gives them over unto an efficacy of deceit that they do vent the Doctrines of Hell the depths of Satan then they do receive in judgement the Key of the bottomless pit to open it that the smoak of it may be let forth and the world receive its vent which before was shut up in Hell in the hearts of the Devils only but now it is let forth to over-spread the Earth and thereby the Sun and the Air is darkned so all the Truths of God are expressed it 's darkned as to all spiritual light for that Satan doth aim at Some do apply this to the Doctrines of Mahomet and some unto several abominations of that Idolatry that brake forth in the West about that time as Brightman understands it of both And out of the smoak came Locusts upon the Earth by Locusts in Scripture two things are commonly intended 1. That they are a devouring Creature and are therefore threatned as a judgement that they should seize upon all and destroy and devour all 2. They do go by great troops Joel 1. and strangely over-spread the Earth wheresoever they come and this some do understand of the followers of Mahomet and some of the Discipline of Antichrist as Paraeus but still Brightman takes in both and this I do assure you never doth the smoak arise out of the bottomless pit but it breeds Locusts there doth arise out of it abundance of wicked and worthless men that go by troops and would surely devour all and it 's Satans plot against the Church of God and therefore the most dangerous and that in which he doth put the most confidence he doth love to raise persecution and to roar like a Lion when he can but if that do not accomplish his end then he betakes himself unto this he casts a flood out of his mouth but still his end is the same that the woman that was not devoured by the great red Dragon might be carried away with the flood Austin hath given warning to the Churches of a three-fold Persecution that they should surely undergo Revel 12.17 Prima Ecclesiae persecutio fuit violenta per mundi principes secunda fraudulenta per haereticos tertia erit violenta fraudulenta simul c. The first Persecution of the Church was violent by the Princes of the world the second fraudulent by Hereticks the third violent and fraudulent also Objection Object Now they that deny the persons in the Trinity this Argument is very rife and common amongst them If there be Persons in the God-head they are either something or nothing either they are substances or they are accidents if something then there was something from eternity that was not God and if nothing that cannot be the ground of a distinction for Non entis nullae sunt affectiones that which is not has no affections and if finite then there is something in God that is finite and if infinite then there are three infinites which cannot be in one God the very Argument of Arius that he did use and was refuted by Athanasius and from him Socinus had it and there have been some in our Age that have asserted the same who are Stars fallen from Heaven to whom the Key of the bottomless pit is given in judgement to themselves I am sure and we may fear to the Nation who have not received the Truth in the love of it and therefore God gives up to the efficacy of deceit to believe a lye to whom I say this Key has been given to give vent to this smoak again in the world And this I pitch upon because it is the great Argument that they glory in Answer Answer For Answer to it I would first lay down these positions 1. It 's plain in Scripture that there is but one God and that an Idol is nothing in the world there is none other God but one as it is 1 Corinth 8.4 The Lord thy God is one Lord. 2. The Scripture speaks of Father Son and Spirit and they are said expresly to be Three and therefore are distinguished from one another 1 Joh. 5.7 For there are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are one 3. The God-head in Scripture is attributed to them all and the essential properties of an infinite being He is called God the Father John 1.1 1 Cor. 8.6 and the Word is God the same Word that was incarnate and was made flesh and this Word is God and the Spirit dwells in the hearts of the Faithful all the world over and that both in Heaven and Earth and therefore must be every where present changing the hearts of men which nothing but an Almighty and a Creating Power can do and doth know their hearts for he doth supply them with graces and influences daily and helps their infirmities and teaches them to pray c. all which can be done by none but he that is God and they are therefore said to be one because the God-head of the Divine Essence is but one 1 Joh. 5.7 4. There is something attributed unto one in the Scripture that cannot be said of another the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father the Father doth beget and is not begotten the Son is begotten of the Father and cannot be said to beget the Son is said to take flesh the Word was made flesh and so did not the Father the Son was said to be sent and so is not the Father therefore they are distinguished yet it 's plain that they are but one God this is plainly the Doctrine that is delivered unto the Saints Now let us apply this unto the Argument in hand and we will 1. Retort it they are Three Father Son and Holy Ghost these are either something or nothing they are substances or accidents they are finite or infinite and the same inconveniences will return upon themselves for they must assert them to be Three and yet one for a Trinity in Unity the Scripture doth clearly hold forth 2. It 's not strange even amongst the Creatures that the same person should be a Man and a Father yet as a Father distinguished from himself as a Man and a Son distinguished from himself as a Man therefore it 's not strange in this that the Father should be distinguished from himself as God and the Son also The Scripture does clearly speak to us of certain actiones ad intra which are in God which do not refer to the Creatures but to Father Son and Spirit amongst themselves as the Father does beget and the Son is begotten and the Holy Ghost proceeds from both and from these actions do arise the relative properties of
glorifie the three Persons in the Trinity in the hearts of Believers and this appears plainly by Eph. 1.3 7 13. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus in whom we have redemption through his blood and have attained unto an inheritance in whom after you believed you were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise So that to honour the Persons and to exalt them in the hearts of Believers is one great and main intendment of the Gospel and therefore if your faith close not with them you cross one great and main end of the Gospel of grace and that must be done not only in receiving of blessings and benefits from the Trinity in common but that a man take special notice of the distinct works of them all what is done by the Father and what is done by the Son that in that blessing the person from whence it comes may be highly exalted in the soul therefore we do read of distinct acts of faith exercised upon the Son Joh. 14.1 Joh. 5.23 and the Father You believe in God believe also in me that all men may honour the Son even as they honour the Father 3 As the order of their working doth follow the order of their subsisting as the School-men observe the works of the Father being first and then the works of the Son so it 's in the work of grace and all the benefits of it attributed to God the Father are first in order of Nature and then those that are attributed to the Son and therefore Adoption being the act of the Father is by some asserted to be first in order of all spiritual blessings that we receive by grace before Redemption which is an act of the Son and of Sanctification Forbes of Justification p. 28. which is an act of the Holy Ghost and this very consideration will give a man great light into the order of all spiritual blessings that we receive by virtue of the new Covenant for the order of the blessings are answerable to the order of the workings of those persons from whence they flow 1 Joh. 4.16 2. Believers should exercise love towards all three Persons God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwells in God and God in him There is a walking in love and a dwelling therein as a man dwells in his own house there is not only a love of the Son as says Christ Joh. 15.9 So I have loved you continue you in my love but there is a love of the Father also that the soul is to look upon as distinct Joh. 14.23 Joh. 16.27 If any man love me and keep my words my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him I say not that I will pray the Father for you for the Father himself loveth you becaâ—â—â— you have loved me 1 It is a great comfort and honour unto the Saints that they are come unto the innumerable company of Angels and unto the Souls of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 And the promise is made good to them Zac. 3.7 They have places or galleries to walk in amongst them that stand by and that they can walk in the love of Angels and of the general Assembly of the Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven but much more to walk in the love of all the Persons that they are come unto Jesus they are come to the Mediator of the new Covenant to the blood of sprinkling and unto God the Judge of all and so can walk in the apprehension of the love of them all and it 's a great comfort that they can go to them all in prayer grounded upon the particular love of them all the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit Rev. 1.4 5. Grace and peace be with you from him that is and was and is to come and from the seven Spirits that are before the Throne and from Jesus the faithful and true witness And the soul tastes the love of the Father in giving his Son and the love of the Son in that he loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 2 That we might testifie our love to each Person distinctly and suitable unto the love with which they have loved us 1 let us fear to offend them all not only fear to offend God the Father because our God is a consuming fire and it 's a great and terrible name Ezech. 21.10 the Lord our God but also fear to offend God the Son our Saviour Take heed of him obey his voice provoke him not for my name is in him it is the rod of my son which it contemneth as every tree c. And Eph. 2.4 30. fear to grieve or quench the Spirit or resist his motions 2 Perform duties by arguments and motives drawn from the love of them all Joh. 14.23 If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will make our abode with him he that has my commandments and keeps them he shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self to him 3 Give glory unto them all being affected with their love particularly that the soul may say Glory be unto the Father Son and Holy Ghost according to the intent of the Gospel that as we were baptized in the Name of them all so we may give glory to them all in a Gospel-sense And the truth is as this should be the great and principal object of our faith so it should be of our love also the highest love we can love God with is to love him for himself we may love God for his benefits and his blessings but yet that is not true love unless the highest love be set upon the persons Plus diligere famulum quam sponsum meretricis amor est Aust To love the servant more than the Bridegroom is adulterous love 3. As in the work of Faith the Soul is to be exercised upon all the Persons so also in the point of Assurance which is an addition unto Faith we should wait for the Witness and the sealing of them all because all of them set their seals unto the Evidences of the Saints The scope of the Epistle of John is 1 Joh. 5.7 that the Saints may know that they have Eternal Life and there are Witnesses some in Heaven and some in Earth but yet the Testimonies that these give all of them are in the heart of a Believer for so it is said He that believes hath the witness within himself the Father the Word and the Spirit Vers 10. and these three persons in Heaven give a distinct witness unto the assurance of the Saints in their own hearts there are three seals that are set unto it though it 's true that a man knowing the Love of
he is not the God of thy mercy and his patience and long-suffering thou hast no claim to but all these Attributes shall joyn also with Justice in their pleas against thee what is there that can stand in the way to hinder the fulness of wrath from falling on such a soul 4. The perfection of this misery thou wilt never know till thou comest unto Hell as the fulness of this promise can never be known by the Saints till they come to Heaven here you may enjoy your inheritance in creatures and promises but thou that art a Saint shalt enter one day upon the inheritance of Attributes more fully than can be enjoyed here there where they all shall be set forth gloriously for thee in their full lustre to make thee happy in the Lord so also it shall be a mans utmost misery when he comes to Hell that all the Attributes of God shall be in his utmost extremity turned against him for ever and thou shalt know God to be perfectly an enemy unto thee and all that is in God as he is the God of his people all that is in him is for them so all that is in him is against thee And then every Attribute shall act to the full for ever Here in this life Justice doth not act its utmost and God does not stir up all his wrath there is by the Kingdom of Christ not only a benefit comes upon all the creatures for they all stand and continue in their being by it but there is a suspension upon the workings of all the Attributes of God towards wicked men that though they have an evil eye at them from day to day as 't is said God is angry with the wicked every day yet he does not immediately break forth against them but when the Kingdom shall be given up unto God the Father and God shall be all in all this restraint upon the Attributes in the actings of them shall cease and every Attribute shall have its perfect work against thee for ever and then he will shew his power upon the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Vse 2 2. Take comfort in the Attributes of God look upon these as the main of thy inheritance and shelter and shrowd thy self under them from day to day for this is your strong hold you are prisoners of hope and this is the desire of the Saints As Bernard de Amore Dei cap. 1. speaks in reference unto Christ he would not only touch him with Thomas and put his finger into his side c. sed totus intrem usque ad ipsum cor Jesu c. in sanctum sanctorum I would enter wholly even into the very heart of Jesus c. into the holy of holies So should the soul wholly hide it self in these Chambers this secret of his Pavilion 1. In the middle of all creature-comforts and inward consolations of thy Spirit let thy heart rise from them and say Surely this is not my portion there is indeed a great deal of sweetness in this but yet there is much more in that which is my portion a gracious heart should rise in this manner and please it self with thinking if there be sweetness on Earth much more in Heaven Si adeò splendeat terrestris Roma saith Fulgent So we should rise from our priviledges and comforts below and our inheritance in them to that in God and so as Christ comforts himself in this Psal 16.5 The Lord is the portion of my inheritance 2. If at any time God takes away the creatures from thee retire unto him and say Lord my portion was not in them I can stand upon the ruines of the world and can say I have lost nothing for the time will come when God will put an end unto all creature-comforts and he will supply all immediately in himself and therefore so he give thee more of himself it 's no matter what thou dost lose of all things else Christ says Mat. 21.22 that man hath a treasure Now where there is so there are some Exchequer-days when the Treasure comes in a worldly man that has his treasure and portion in this life when God takes away the creatures his soul dyes within him that 's the best day to him that brings in most of that treasure but he that has his portion in the Lord can rejoyce in his income that way even when he is deprived of the creatures and it 's a disparagement unto God not to rejoyce in him alone as if there were not enough in him as Elkanah told his wife Am not I better to thee than ten sons Cannot all my comforts be supplied in thee 3. Do not unworthily fear the fear of man it is true that they do speak high and they will threaten much and the people of God are apt sinfully to fear because of the fury of the oppressor as if he were ready to destroy and so by and by are apt to say a confederacy with the wicked O! should you fear who have infinite wisdom and infinite power of your own either to disappoint or to resist it doth plainly argue that you are not acquainted with and do not make use of your interest in the Attributes of God in Covenant Should such a man as I fear and should my heart quail and fear in the evil times Let us never profane the name of the Lord our God in this manner Mark 8.17 18. says Christ Why reason you because you have no bread perceive you not have you your hearts yet hardned when I brake the five loaves c It 's the most unworthy thought that could lodge in you after so much experience of my power and provision for you to think you should want consider you have had so much experience of my power and infinite wisdom that has wrought for you when your own reason was at a non plus and infinite power when your hands did hang down and your knees feeble consider the setting forth of every Attribute of God and delight your souls in it Hos 13.3 He will scatter them as smoak out of a chimney A man should look upon them and laugh them to scorn from a high assurance Luther that vincet mea audacia in Christo this raiseth in the soul only true courage and a holy greatness of mind 4. Look upon the Attributes as having an interest in them and as in a strait you eye a promise and expect its accomplishment do the same with attributes also and thereby honour them by taking hold of them if thou sin eye mercy the Lord merciful and gracious pardoning iniquity transgression and sin if thou want wisdom look on him as the Father of lights and if power be strong in the Lord and the power of his might c. And sometimes thou mayst have no creatures no hills to look to then look towards God when thou knowest not what to do it may be there are no promises that thy soul can
not the holy Spirit by whom you are sealed to the day of redemption do not resist the Holy Ghost do not tempt him lest he forsake you and say I will strive with you no more A man should fear the evil aspect of any word of God and the estrangement of any promise of God that he should be in such a condition that he cannot go to it with boldness and comfort and be kept off from an Ordinance of God that he cannot eat the Passover with the people of God in the season of it how much more when a man shall look up upon the Father Son and Spirit and sees any of these estranged from him for they seek the glory one of another and delight to have each other honoured in the hearts of the Saints and if thou walk unworthily towards any of them they are all of them provoked and displeased thereby § 3. Let us now take a view of the particulars how and in what respect each person doth make over himself unto the Saints in the second Covenant that we may see how they have an interest in them all 1. God the Father makes over himself in Covenant unto the Saints as he is the Father Joh. 20. therefore Christ calls him My Father and your Father my God and your God The Saints also call him our Father 2 Thess 1.1 In God our Father c. Christ is his Son by nature as he is God and as Mediator he is taken into the same Sonship by the grace of personal Vnion Luke 1.35 That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God And we are also taken into the same Sonship by the grace of Adoption by virtue of the mystical Union even as the Manhood of Christ is by the personal Union Now what is it to have an interest in him as a Father that we can call him Abba Father The sweetness of that relation is very great unto the Saints for he is the Father of mercies and he is the Father of lights 2 Cor. 1.3 Jam. 1.17 by which Majesty Holiness and Perfection is intimated for so much Light doth signifie 1 Joh. 1.5 and therefore he is said to dwell in light and Heaven to be an inheritance in light and he is the Fountain and Father of all Light whether it be lumen fidei or lumen gloriae Col. 1.12 the light of faith or the light of glory and from hence Saints looking upon God the Father making over himself unto them are greatly affected considering 1 they have the honour of such a relation and truly the highest honour of the Saints is that of Sonship as it was the highest honour of Christ in his relation that he was the Son of the Father and we count it a high honour to stand in relation unto a Prince as David said Is it a small matter to be Son-in-law to a King It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a priviledge or prerogative to be called the Sons of God Behold what manner of love the Father has shewed us Joh. 1.12 13. that we should be called the sons of God! Now we are the sons of God in this life we have this title of honour put upon us though it is true our condition doth not seem answerable unto such a relation adoptionis fructus nondum apparet c. 1 Joh. 3.2 2 We may be sure to be acquainted with his secrets and see all his actings for the Father loves the Son and shews him all that he himself does he did so to Christ and in your measure he will deal so with you also for the Son is in the bosom of the Father and therefore he knows his mind and his purpose The secrets of the Lord are with them that fear him Joh. 1. â—8 i. e. the secrets of his counsel with them and the secret of his providence over them his Law is in their hearts 3 He loves you as a Father My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And we know the bowels of a father to his son by Abrahams to Ismael for his everlasting state his love did rise so high though we are begotten not of the will of man but of God And though Absolom were a disobedient son yet David doth love him so that his heart went out to him even when he rebelled against him there is an efficacy in love 4 As a Father he 'l hear your prayers Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me I know thou hearest me always whatever you ask of the Father he will give it you also that are his children It is by our sonship that we prevail with God in prayer at any time we have an Advocate in the Father The Father himself loves you saith Christ and therefore whatever you ask the Father be sure you shall speed and Christ argues the case with us Why should you doubt this If you know how to give good gifts to your children that are evil how much more shall your heavenly Father give to them that ask 5 He will as a Father give you a supply for all your wants The Father loves the Son and has committed all things into his hand all judgment is committed to the Son so he will give you as a Father the greatest gifts he gives his Son his Spirit he will give the Holy Ghost to them that ask him he will give grace and glory he doth not think Heaven too dear for them because they are sons and his own Essence he will make their portion and happiness 6 He rejoyceth in your prosperity here in your well-doing when wisdom is justified of her children he rejoyceth in their well-doing a wise son maketh a glad father he loves to see them prosper to see their graces grow and their souls thrive that they may have all good things both here and hereafter 7 He spares them in their services as a father spares his son that serves him though they be weak he doth not reject their offerings and he doth accept the will for the deed does not deal with us as an enemy that watches for our halting but as a father we do not stand without as the rest of the world do but we come into the inner Court. 8 Lastly they have an interest in him for correction Whom I love I chastise says God and in all their afflictions he doth pity them as a father Eph. 3.12 he doth correct in judgment not in fury but in measure c. it is for their profit that they may say it was good for them c. But more particularly this must be premised How and in what respect each of the Persons have made over themselves to the Saints under the second Covenant that under the first Covenant all the persons had an equal hand in the same things and there were not opera propria but what the Father is said to do that the Son and Spirit also are said to do so
and prove a curse and not a blessing 4. Because it is very sweet to God when we follow him through a wilderness and see nothing but an alsufficiency in him through a land not sown Jer. 2.2 then you shew your love to him and he looks upon it as the day of your espousals Hos 9.10 I found Israel as grapes in the wilderness it is a proverbial speech when you have none to look to but God Drusius when you are in a land of drought it is never so pleasing unto God as when we are brought into a wilderness and yet there to follow him and the Lord doth never speak so sweetly to us as when he doth deprive us of these outward things that our hearts may stay upon him alone and therefore Hos 2.14 he says I will allure her into the wilderness what was there in the wilderness that might allure her The wilderness has a double consideration 1 It was a place of affliction and so there was nothing to allure for no affliction for the present is joyous but grievous 2 The wilderness was a place of manifestation where God did shew himself in his Ordinances and in his mighty works and if the wilderness be so there is an alluring in it and then saith God will I speak to her heart O when God brings into the wilderness and gives discoveries of himself there are the greatest comforts and the sweetest speakings unto the souls of his Saints the Lord doth not fail them in their time of need 5. Gods great glory is to manifest his Attributes in the sufferings of his people and it is the great work that he doth in the world and the greatest comfort that the Saints have is to see the Attributes of God drawn forth and to work for them Jer. 2.31 Have I been a wilderness to Israel It 's true says the Lord I brought them into a wilderness and did allure them thither but when they were there I was not a wilderness unto them they found all in me though the earth afforded them nothing yet there was nothing wanting from Heaven it was not a wilderness when they were in the wilderness See an instance of it Jer. 29.22 there were two false Prophets that did strive to make provision for themselves and they pleased the people Jer. 2.29 and said The King of Babylon should not carry them away captive they spoke lies in the name of the Lord and we see what became of them but Jeremiah that made no provision for himself did not as Baruck seek great things for himself we see how he is provided for even in the enemies hand Jer. 39.11 12. Look well to him do him no harm but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee how good is it to look up to God for all our supplies and not to distrust his goodness and power in any danger or strait that we may be exposed to 6. As our supplies do come from God so also there is a special token of love and interest discovered in his sufficiency and that is sweeter than the mercy it self the Lord loves to give unto his people every mercy that they need and as it is lined with love so it shall be faced with love that the mercy shall come in according unto the promise and he can look upon it as the birth of the promises as a pledge and a fruit of interest in the alsufficiency of God it 's a great thing and is much more than the blessing it self if it were a thousand times multiplied that all the promises lead a man to Christ the foundation of them all 2 Cor. 1.20 they do lead a man as beams to the Sun so when the mercy leads a man to his interest in the alsufficiency of God that 's more than the mercy it self when a mâ—n sees it 's given in to the bargain when he seeks first the Kingdom of Heaven all things in this world shall be added to him Psal 6.33 though they are in themselves but small yet they are magni amoris indicium there is a great deal of difference between a kiss and a reward though there may be a greater bounty in the one but there is more love in the other and so far as the people of God taste that the Lord is gracious so far they taste his love is sweeter than all unto them for if there were not love in the gift there were no relish in it we use to despise the gifts only of enemies and indeed the hearts of all the Saints do so far undervalue them as Luther that they can tell God Let thy gifts of this worlds goods only be to another but let me have a smile from thy face one kiss of thy mouth and it shall chear me more than corn or wine and oil as for all other things they are but as Luther said of the Turkish Empire mica canibus projecta a mite cast to the dogs because there was no love in it therefore a little that the righteous hath is better than the riches of many wicked as a little that the righteous doth is better than the pompous services of many wicked persons because there is love in the one and none in the other and without this all is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal Object 2 You say that none have an interest in the alsufficiency of God but his Covenant-people But we see that the men of the world have great sufficiency Psal 73.7 they have more than heart can wish they enjoy all manner of abundance that one would think the alsufficiency of God were made over to them rather than to the Saints one would have thought it to have been the portion of Dives rather than Lazarus For the wicked fare deliciously every day c. Answ It 's true indeed that many wicked men who are strangers to God and his Covenant have great sufficiency in outward things but yet 1 though it be from the alsufficiency of God for he it is that is the Fountain of common mercies he doth cause the Sun to rise upon the unjust c. he opens his hand and fills every living thing it is he therefore that is said to fill their bellies with his hid treasure Psal 17.14 but yet it is not from their interest in his alsufficiency they have all from God but they have no interest in God it 's one thing to receive mercy from God ex largitate from an overflowing of his goodness and another thing to receive it ex proprietate from an interest in his goodness There are some benefits by Christ that wicked men have that have no interest in Christ there are many works that the Sun doth effect in the earth when it never shines and so it 's with Christ he vouchsafeth good things to many a soul in whose Horizon he doth never rise there is a great difference in the manner of conveyance 2 A sufficiency they have
beggerly rudiments and Nehushtan a little piece of brass God will abase the excellency of all creatures that we make an Idol of and the Lord will let you see that your grace cannot preserve you and therefore there are two reasons why God hath let the Saints fall and hath set before you their example 1 Ostendit infirmitatem nostram ut timeamus Luther 2 Judicium suum quòd minus nihil ferre possit quà m superbiam He shews 1 our infirmity that we may fear 2 His judgment how much he hates pride For it is for this cause that he doth give up the Saints unto such gross and dangerous falls either to prevent pride or to cure it and therefore Bernard demands Why when the people of God do pray for grace above all things God many times denies them the degree of grace that they desire Oportet ipsam gratiam temperari ne in elationis vitium incidamus pag. 521. interdum subtrahitur gratia interdum retrahitur To keep from pride c. all is grounded upon pride vel superbia quae jam est vel quae futura est c. pag. 729. either the pride that already is in the heart or that which may be 6. The supplies of grace the more immediate they are the sweeter they are for they come with a greater favour from the fountain of grace from which they flow 2 Cor. 12. My grace is sufficient for thee and a Saint hath more sweetness when grace comes in from God and Christ immediately than if it were in his own power or hand to lay it out upon himself at his own pleasure and as in respect of creatures a supply from God immediately is sweeter than all the second causes in the world as the womans meal was better than if she had it still in her own hand so much more is the supply of grace dulcius ex ipso fonte c. for hereby Christ is immediately honoured and there is a continued love testified it was the first sin and the first temptation to be simile Deo scilicet ut bonorum suorum ipse sibi sit fons ipse sibi copia to be like God the fountain of good to himself Prosper c. a godly man hates it and curseth it to Hell from whence it came as God hath laid up all grace in Christ as the Steward to dispense it so a gracious soul desires and delights it should be in Christs hand rather than in his own and he would not take it out of Christs hand or make himself the fountain of his own grace for a world for he says My life is in Christ and because he lives I shall live also Vse 3 § 3. It serves also for exhortation unto all you that have chosen the Lord for your God that you be content with him alone though you have nothing else for there is an alsufficiency in him he that was sufficient unto himself before there was any creature in Heaven and Earth his self-sufficiency shall be thy alsufficiency it is your Election that gives you an interest in God Josh 14.22 you have chosen the Lord unto your selves the Lord will not put himself upon any man but he doth inlighten their minds and sets the will at liberty to chuse him for himself for every mans portion is of his own choice he is in this sense though not in the Arminian notion propriae fortunae faber c. so Dagon became the god of the Philistins and Chemosh the god of the Amorites it was by their own election and having chosen the Lord God Jehovah to be your God O study him let your heart be rapt up in the contemplation of him there is a kind of ecstasie in love there is a rapture which is nothing else but supremus contemplationis gradus mentis excessus the supreme degree of contemplation and excess of mind and be exhorted to use all the means to know God There are three ways by which we may know God 1 Viâ negationis by way of negation denying all the imperfections that are in the creatures to be in him 2 Causalitatis in a way of causality all the good that is in the creatures comes from him as its proper cause 3 Eminentiae in a way of eminence and therefore all is in him and in him in a more glorious manner than is or can be in the creatures a man should use to set God before him in his greatness and in his glory see him as a Sea as being without banks or bottom this is life eternal to know God O it is good for a man to drown his thoughts in this Sea to cast himself into it by a holy meditation and think till his thoughts be at a loss till he can think no more As a poor troubled soul when he looks upon the wrath of God his soul is swallowed up with it and he can think himself into an endless maze till he lose himself so you should do in the alsufficiency of God they are the narrow thoughts that we have of God that are dishonourable to him and are also uncomfortable to us my thoughts are not as your thoughts he is able to do above all that we can ask or think according to thy fear such is thy wrath and when you have viewed him in this manner and found that there is a good in him beyond all things more than thy thoughts and desires can reach and what thou canst desire is not to be compared to him and yet the heart of man can frame to it self vast desires now say This God shall be my God for ever and ever and in him alone will I place my happiness and hope I will be content with him alone though I have nothing else Lam. 3.4 and let this be the full resolution and bent of thy heart so to do The Lord is my portion saith my soul It 's true that all men will acknowledge that God is the Fountain of life and the chiefest good but it is in ore tantùm only in mouth but the Church brings in her soul speaking it as verbum mentis the word of her mind it 's that which my soul doth embrace and consent unto and that will make a man to be contented with him alone Psal 37. and he will go out to no other and so it was with David Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee c. Now wherein is this contentment of soul in God to be found and manifested 1. The soul lays up all in God in him alone it hath nothing out of God as it hath nothing apart from God for a godly man enjoys all in God and God in all things so that there is nothing that is not to be found in him Thou art a shield for me my glory and the lifter up of my head the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer my God my
true that such are counted the only fools men of low thoughts and weak spirits that cannot please themselves with the face and glory of the times as other men do but the Saint saith when he makes comparisons and that is one way of exercising of faith There is no Rock but our God Deut. 32. Jer. 14.22 their rock is not as our Rock the enemies themselves being judges the soul dares to compare with them all Are there any amongst the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are called vanity quia non subsistunt non prosunt because they neither subsist nor profit so the soul says Look upon all the gods of the world Can they do this as Saul said in a brag when he had almost ruined the Kingdom for David saith it was weak he bore up the pillars of it will the son of Jesse give you fields and vineyards c. is there any comparison between the happiness that you enjoy under me and what you are like to do under him 1 Sam. 22.7 17. And so the Saints of God say and therefore they are content as a worldly man is populus mihi sibilat at mihi plaudo and that 's enough let the men of the world take their portion but they are not like the portion of Jacob Jer. 10.16 and therefore whatever they are in other mens esteem so long as they are blessed in their own they are happy Nemo aliorum sensu miser est sed suo ideò non possunt cujuscunque falso judicio esse miseri qui sunt verè suâ conscientiâ beati c. Salv. pag. 8. Although wicked men upon earth can see no happiness in God it doth no way abate the happiness of the Saints in glory who enjoy it nay it doth the rather heighten it when they consider that so many thousands have their portion in vanity and yet Esa 44.20 cannot deliver their own souls and say Is there not a lye in my right hand then a man doth bless himself and saith Who made me to differ As this will be a special part of the misery of the wicked at the last day to see Abraham and Isaac and many come from the East and the West and sit down with them in the Kingdom of Heaven and they themselves thrust out for the happiness of the Saints is a great means to aggravate the misery of the wicked In die judicii gloriam beatorum videbunt poena eorum non minuitur sed augebitur 1 Propter invidiam de eorum foelicitate dolentes 2 Propter privationem quòd ipsi talem gloriam amiserunt Aquin. sup quaest 98. art 9. so it will be a special part of the happiness of the Saints that they shall see the misery of the ungodly poenas videbunt damnatorum contraria juxta se therefore they shall see the misery of the wicked ut beatitudo illis magìs complaceat c. Aquin. sup quaest 93. art 1. and the same happiness in a measure is in this life begun that the people of God are so far from envying the happiness of the wicked that they pity them much more to consider how they are fed as a lamb in a large place unto the slaughter-time and how their portion is in vain things and they have made lyes their resting place 3. This gives unto the soul in all its necessities and straits a city of refuge a place of retreat when it is put upon any distress or when it is under any pursuit whatsoever and the Saints are sometimes greatly distressed as 1 Sam. 30.6 David was and then they make their retreat unto the strong holds Zac. 9.12 satis praesidii in uno Deo When a man is pursued by the thoughts of his own heart then that which is his portion the man retires to and in the bosom thereof he lyes down as we see in Haman his heart was unquiet he needed a cordial for lust is tender and it can bear nothing now he retires to something to refresh him Hest 5.11 he talks of the glory of his riches the multitude of his children and all the things wherein the King had promoted him and how he had advanced him above the rest of the Princes c. and by this he doth make a recruit unto his unquiet spirit for it is from a mans chief good that in any trouble a mans cordial must be fetched and so it is with a godly man also Prov. 18.10 11. The name of the Lord is a strong tower and the rich mans wealth is his strong tower they have each of them in all difficulties and dangers a retiring place suitable unto what is their chief good and here is the misery of an ungodly man that when dangers come his retiring place will not support him but the storm doth sweep away his refuge of lyes and the waters overflow his hiding place Esa 28.17 as a man that in a storm gets to a shelter but there is an interpluvium it doth drop upon a man and haply wet him the more in a storm he casts anchor but the anchor comes home and is not able to be a stay unto his tossed vessel they do hang all their hopes upon a nail and it 's not fastned in a sure place and so it doth not uphold the burden Esa 22.23 but it 's never so with the Saints when they are pursued with temptations with guilt with fears on the right hand and on the left Prov. 18.10 yet Prov. 18.10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run to it and are safe the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it doth signifie to be exalted that is to be set on high out of reach and so out of the fear of danger it is not only a strong place munitus fortified sed sublimis very high Rev. 21.12 16. Rev. 21.12 16. it is a great and a high wall that had twelve foundations and therefore must needs be strong and impregnable and for the height it was 12000 furlongs and this wall is nothing else but that in Zac. 2.5 The Lord will be a wall of defence unto them that he that is within this wall and hath gotten under this shelter need not fear 4. It 's this that will keep and guard the heart from going out unto any thing else whatsoever it be because a man hath high thoughts of his sufficiency in God alone for the true reason why men do go out to any thing else is because they believe not the alsufficiency of God and the reason why the Saints that do believe in truth have sallyings of heart out to the creatures is because there is something wanting in their faith in this particular Phil. 4.7 Phil. 4.7 there is a peace of God which is a quieting of the soul in the wisdom and alsufficiency of God when in his way we have committed all unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it doth guard
shall be from the immediate hand of God and that by a creating work that when the people shall look to the creatures and say we see no means to defend us yet they can look to an immediate acting of Omnipotency Esa 67.17 and that by a creating work for his people I create a heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness it is spoken of the glorious reformation that shall be in the later days it is there spoken not of renewing the substance but of the qualities of Heaven and Earth a glorious restitution of their primitive and original glory a mighty work that God shall not only pass upon Saints but on the creatures which shall be restored and delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God and he that looks upon the corruptions of men and the desolations of nations and the confusions amongst the creatures that shall be immediately before those days he will say How can these things be It is impossible that such a glorious reformation should be wrought But to strengthen their faith and to raise them up to expect it he puts them off from second causes and tells them it shall be an act of almighty power it is by a creating work and surely the same hand and the same power that did make them at first can also renew them and restore them unto their primitive and original glory that as the said immediate power is put forth for the renewing of their souls Eph. 2.10 We are created in Christ to good works all is made new within him by an immediate power so also all shall be made new without him by an immediate providence that though there be no concurrence of means and second causes yet if God can make a new world then he can renew this he can create a new Heaven and a new Earth and he can create Jerusalem a rejoycing and the people a joy as the promise is unto them so that the Lord will not always work for his people in a ruling but sometimes in a creating way in which there is an immediate putting forth of power and there is not there cannot be any concurrence of means or second causes with it 2. God puts forth an immediate providence for the Churches preservation he doth many times work immediately when there is no help in second causes but all men are ingaged on the contrary part and the Lord looks and there is none to help and the Lord wonders that there was no intercessor no helping of them none to intercede for them there was none so much as by way of prayer that comes in for them and yet now the Church must be preserved Zac. 4.23 Zac. 4.2 3. the Candlestick is the Church but by what means shall this be maintained there can be no supply of oil expected from men but the Lord will make Olive-trees to grow by it that shall make oil of themselves and shall drop into the bails thereof that though no men in the world stand by it or prepare for it yet the Lord will supply it in an immediate way from himself and by himself and by this means the lamp in this Candlestick shall never go out for by an immediate provision of God they shall be maintained Mic. 5.7 Mic. 5.7 The remnant of Jacob shall be as dew from the Lord and as showers upon the grass when they were Jezreel strengthned by the Lord though amongst many people that should hate them and persecute them yet should they be preserved and therefore as Calvin observes rorem pro prato rorido like unto the herbs which are nourished by the dew from Heaven and by the showres from above which stay not for man it tarries not for the sons of men that as the grass is nourished immediately by the dew and doth not depend upon the labours and the watering of man so shall these from God immediately there shall come from him an immediate dew an influence shall come by which they shall be supported that they shall not need to stay for any creatures assistance or any concurrence of second causes whatsoever 3. There is an immediate Providence that is seen in restraints upon the souls and spirits of men when there are no hindrances in second causes and yet this shall work for the people of God see it Gen. 20. Sarah was in the hand of Abimelech and his lust was stirred up towards her when he heard of her and there was nothing to hinder him but he might have had his will of her and yet for Abrahams sake she was returned unto him chast and undefiled but it was by an immediate working of God upon his spirit when there were no second causes in the way the Lord saith I did hold thee that thou shouldst not touch her And the same thing is true of the people of Israel when they went up to worship at Jerusalem and all the males left their habitation the fittest advantage that could be for the neighbouring Nations who hated them and sought to invade them and did it at other times yet that now they should not have made inrodes upon their Land in the several borders thereof when there was no restraint in second causes no man can give a reason for it but the immediate working of providence that the Lord doth put forth his power upon the spirits of men that it shall be enough if he withhold them There is a bridle without and there is a bridle within by which the spirits of men are turned about there is a hedge for mens ways God doth many times hedge up mens ways with thorns but there is a hedge for the spirits of men also that when there is no hindrance in second causes and none to lift up a hand against them yet their spirits are restrained by an immediate hand And indeed when the secrets of the counsels of Gods providence shall be made manifest at the last day many and glorious will â—he records of such immediate puttings forth of providence be We have an instance in Esau his malice was stirred and he had power in his hand he had three hundred men by which he might have cut off his brother Jacob but only there was an immediate appearance of God upon his spirit and that put a restraint upon him that he could not so much as speak an ill word unto his brother 4. The Lord appears immediately for the destruction of the Churches enemies when their means fail When there was no help from second causes to destroy Egypt or deliver themselves for the Israelites had no power but they cryed unto the Lord and in the night the Lord looked upon the Egyptians host and troubled them and took off their chariot-wheels and they drove heavily and there was a terrour upon their hearts that they said Let us flye for God fights for Israel And so he will do in the destruction of Antichrist the little horn who doth arise with the ten horns and
whole man therefore it is called the old man and when we sin we are carnal and walk as men 1 Cor. 3.3 now the whole man is not defiled with it in the rising of sin it is kept within bounds till it overflow into the members also the inward man is defiled but sin will come upon the outward man also and there is in the members in reference unto the act of sin 1 A fitness to be imployed in it Rom. 6.13 Weapons of unrighteousness the members have distinct forms according to the imployment for which they were created there is a fitness in the foot to walk and in the hand to work so there is a different fitness answerable unto the several acts of sin that the soul can put them upon or imploy them in and they are weapons there is a fitness in them to be used and imployed in the service of sin it 's said of David Psal 45.1 My tongue is the pen of a ready writer it is fit to be imployed in the works of grace so because Doegs tongue did cut like a sharp rasor he is fit to accuse others and to wound them in their good name 2 There is also a readiness as well as a fitness fitness may be passive but a readiness is active You have given your members weapons of unrighteousness Rom. 6.13 14. Acts 13.10 and therefore Acts 13.10 Full of all mischief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad peccandum facilitas ad quodvis scelus propensio so Beza their feet are swift to shed blood whereas there is a deadness and a backwardness unto every thing else that is good there is a weariness their feet are not ready to walk nor their hands to work c. 3 There is also a greediness and an unweariedness the one in the soul and the other in the members Deut. 29.19 it is a drunkenness and they are for taking of their fill of drink as if they could never have enough to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant and so in a lust of the flesh how unsatiable is it and in the lust of the eye the eye is never satisfied with seeing though presently weary unto any thing that is good and there is no such greediness towards it but towards sin it is so and in this doth sin in the body lye Now that it may appear what an overspreading evil is in sin and that the Saints may know in themselves the power of it in the breaking forth therefore the Lord doth give them up to acts of sin 2 That a Saint may see that if he be deserted of God he shall be drawn into sin in all the kinds and degrees of it I cannot saith he resist the rising of it and if the Lord leave me I shall not be able in the least to resist the actings of it according unto the measure of a mans desertion such is the degree of his sin that we may see how great an evil and how dangerous a thing it is to be deserted by the Lord in any degree in any measure of it Damascene in his Orthodox Fidei cap. 29. mentions three sorts of desertions 1 Temporary for tryal such was that of Job which was a desertion only for a present dispensation that thereby the Lord might shew forth and draw out the grace of Job which else had not been so clearly seen 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 castigatory which is for correction of some former neglect and to teach the people of God to keep closer unto him and to fear his departure more than formerly 3 Vindictive and that 's a final desertion and so he doth never forsake his own people the Lord left Hezekiah that he might see what was in his heart and so he doth the Saints that they may see if they are left to themselves what they are and what a terrible thing it is to be deserted of God and what a fearful creature the best men would quickly appear to be then Elias Cretens made four sorts 1 Explorationis to try their graces as we see in Job 2 Correctionis as in David and Solomon and Samson 3 Rejectionis and so the Lord deserted the Jews and so he doth wicked men 4 Satisfactionis and so he did desert the Lord Jesus Christ but there was a satisfaction of Justice in that desertion for it was the payment of a debt 3 That they may see how weak all means are if sin in the power of it be so set against them that they cannot keep it in but it will break out and that unto the highest degree men would think that reason and fear and shame would suppress it and indeed by these the Lord doth many times restrain sin as they did the Jews they would have taken hold of John but they feared the people but now let but the Lord withdraw his hand and all means and arguments and reasonings will not prevail at all with them they are like unto the wild Ass in the wilderness and as the swift Dromedary there is no restraint nothing will be withheld from them of any thing that they have a mind to do they run into it as the horse into the battel Jer. 8.6 so Christ says of Judas it had been good for that man that he had not been born but there is a prevailing injunction he goes on to act nothing can stay him 4 That the pople of God may fear to be delivered up unto the power of Satan There is a kind of spiritual Excommunication which the Lord doth exercise towards men many times What thou dost do quickly and Satan entred into Judas there is a restraint upon the Devil that he cannot always carry men to acts of sin the Devil is bound wicked men shall have the same persecuting hearts but they shall not be able to draw forth those lusts into act Rev. 20.8 but Satan shall be let loose and will hurry men to acts of sin with violence he tempted David to number the people 1 Chron. 21.1 and God was angry with him and Satan stirred him up and it was in vain for Joab to speak to him and shew him his folly he was set upon it and it must be done the Kings word prevailed and so it is still with many of the children of God Satan will carry men on unto horrid actions and they shall act with violence 5 That godly men may exercise repentance of all kinds the object of repentance is all sin not only this or that sin but all sin original sin actual sin sins in the heart That the body may be afflicted by fasting and prayer c. and being famula in culpa it may be socia in poenitentia and sins in the life sins of commission and sins of omission as God will have our faith take in all the objects of faith and be exercised about them all so should our repentâ—â—â—e take in all the object of repentance and the Lord makes us sensible