by meer conviction of the Truth such as wicked Men and Devils may be brought to when they had rather it were false Neither must our believing on Christ be only constrained for fear of Damnation without any hearty Love and Desire towards the enjoyment of him but we must receive the Love of the Truth by relishing the Goodness and Excellency of it and we must account all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord and count them but dung that we may win Christ and be found in him 2 Thess 2.10 Phil. 3.8 9. esteeming Christ to be all our Salvation and Happiness Col. 3.11 in whom all fulness doth dwell Col. 1.19 And this Love must be to every part of Christ's Salvation to Holiness as well as Forgiveness of Sins We must desire earnestly that God would create in us a clean Heart and right Spirit as well as hide his face from our sins Psal 51.9 10. not like many that care for nothing in Christ but only Deliverance from Hell Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Mat. 5.6 The former of these Acts doth not immediately unite us to Christ because it is terminated only on the means of Conveyance the Gospel yet it is a saving Act if it be rightly performed because it enclineth and disposeth the Soul to the latter Act whereby Christ himself is immediately received into the Heart He that believeth the Gospel with hearty love and liking as the most Excellent Truth will certainly with the like heartiness believe on Christ for his Salvation They that know the name of the Lord will certainly put their trust in him Psal 9.10 Therefore in Scripture saving-Saving-Faith is sometimes described by the former of these Acts as if it were a meer believing the Gospel sometimes by the latter as a believing on Christ or in Christ Rom. 10.9 If thou believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved 11 the Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed 1 John 5.1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God For the better understanding of the nature of Faith let it be further observed that the Second and Principal of it believing on Christ includeth believing on God the Father Son and Holy Ghost because they are one and the same infinite God and they all concurr in our Salvation by Christ as the only Mediator betwixt God and us in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen 2 Cor. 1.20 By him as mediator we believe on God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that our faith and hope might be in God 1 Pet. 1.21 And it is the same thing with trusting on God or on the Lord which is so highly commended in the whole Scripture especially in the Old Testament as may easily appear by considering that it hath the same Causes Effects Objects Adjuncts Opposites and all the same Circumstances excepting only that it had a respect to Christ as promised before his Coming and now it respecteth him as already come in the Flesh Believing in the Lord and trusting on his Salvation are equivalent terms that explain one another Psal 78.22 I confess that trusting on things seen or known by the meer Light of Reason as on our own Wisdom Power Riches on Princes or any Arm of Flesh may not so properly be called believing on them but trusting on a Saviour as discovered by a Testimony is properly believing on him It is also the same thing that is expressed by the terms of resting relying leaning staying our selves on the Lord because it is the Ground of that Expectation that is the proper Act of Hope though our Believing and Trusting be for the present as well as future benefit of this Salvation The reason why it is so commonly expressed in the Scriptures of the New Testament by the terms of believing on Christ might be probably because when that part of Scripture was written there was cause in a special manner to urge believing the Testimony that was then newly revealed by the Gospel Having thus explained the nature of Faith I come now to assert its proper Use and Office in our Salvation That it is the Means and Instrument whereby we receive Christ and all his Fulness actually into our Hearts This excellent Use and Office of Faith is encountered by a multitude of Errors men naturally esteem that it is too small and slight a thing to produce so great effects as Naaman thought washing in Jordan too small a matter for the cure of his Leprosie They contemn the true means of entring in at the streight Gate because they seem too easie for such purpose and thereby they make the Entrance not only difficult but impossible to themselves Some will allow that Faith is the sole Condition of our Justification and the Instrument to receive it according to the Doctrine maintained formerly by the Protestants against the Papists but they account that it is not sufficient or effectual to Sanctification but that it rather tendeth to Licentiousness if it be not joyned with some other means that may be powerful and effectual to procure an holy Practice They commend this great Doctrine of Protestants as a comfortable Cordial for Persons upon their Death-beds or in Agonies under Terrors of Conscience but they account that it is not good for ordinary Food and that it is Wisdom in Ministers to preach it seldom and sparingly and not without some Antidote or Corrective to prevent the licentiousness to which it tendeth Their common Antidote or Corrective is That Sanctification is necessary to Salvation as well as Justification and that though we be justified by Faith yet we are sanctified by our own performance of the Law and so they set up Salvation by works and make the Grace of Justification to be of none effect and not at all comfortable If it had indeed such a malignant influence upon Practice it could not be owned as a Doctrine proceeding from the most holy God and all the Comfort that it affords must needs be ungrounded and deceitful This Consequence is well understood by some late Refiners of the Protestant Religion and therefore they have thought fit to new-model this Doctrine and to make Saving-Faith to be only a Condition to procure a Right and Title to our Justification by the Righteousness of Christ which must be performed before we can lay any good claim to the enjoyment of it and before we have any right to the actual receiving of it and this they call an accepting of or receiving Christ And that they may the better secure the practice of Holiness by their Conditional Faith they will not have trusting on God
we must perceive it to make us love him for if we look upon him as a God contrary to us that hateth us and will damn us our own innate Self-love will breed hatred and heart-risings against him in spite of our Hearts that love which is the end of the Law must flow from Faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 And if Hatred work in thee more than Love how canst thou expect good thoughts of God or any other than blaspheming or at least murmuring thoughts of him in this condition ill-will never speaketh or thinketh well The first right holy Thoughts thou canst have of God are thoughts of his Grace and Mercy to thy Soul in Christ which are included in the Grace of Faith Get these thoughts first by believing in Christ and they will breed in thee love to God and all good thoughts of him and free thee from blasphemous and murmuring Thoughts by degrees for love thinks no evil 1 Cor. 13.9 Then wilt thou be able to account God just and merciful if he had damned thee and extended his Grace to others and thou wilt be able to think well of his Holiness and of his Decrees which many cannot endure to hear of The way to get rid of thy raging Lusts is by Faith that purifieth the Heart and worketh by Love Act. 15.9 Gal. 5.6 The Soul must be brought to take pleasure in God and Christ by Faith or else it will lust after fleshly and worldly Pleasures and the more you strive against Lusts without Faith the more they are stirred up though you prevail so far as to restrain the fulfilling of them beg a holy Fear of God with fear of coming short of the promised Rest through unbelief Heb. 4.1 Such a Fear is an Ingredient of Faith and it will breed in us a reverential yea a Child-like fear of God and his Goodness Heb. 12.28 Hos 3.5 We must have Grace whereby we may serve God with Reverence c. It is in the Margent we must have or hold fast Grace and there is no other way to hold fast Grace but by Faith and this will quickly calm all pannick and tormenting Horror And if you would be free from carelesness and slightning the Wrath of God your way is first to avoid dispairing by believing for People grow careless by dispairing and for their own quiet they will endeavour to slight Evils which they have no hope to prevent according to the Proverb Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die 1 Cor. 15.32 True Humiliation for Sin is either a part or fruit of Faith for on our believing we shall remember our own evil ways and doings that were not good and shall loath our selves in our own sight for all our Abominations Ezek. 36.31 We shall also then willingly renounce our own Righteousness and account it but dung that we may win Christ by Faith Phil. 3.7 8. But Beggars will make the most of all their nasty Rags till they be furnished with better Cloaths and Cripples will not cast away their Crutches until they have a better support to lean on Godly Sorrow for Sin is wrought in us by believing the pardoning Grace of God as it is found by experience that a Pardon from a Prince will sometimes sooner draw tears from a stubborn Malefactor than the fear of a Halter will thus the sinful Woman was brought to wash Christ's Feet with her Tears Luke 7.37 38. We are not like to be sorry for grieving God with our Sins while we look upon him as an enemy that will ease himself well enough of his burthen and right himself upon us by our everlasting destruction The belief of God's pardoning and accepting Grace is a necessary means to bring us to an ingenuous Confession of Sins The People freely confessed their sins when they were baptized of John in Jordan for the remission of sins Mark 1.4 5. The Confession of Despairers is forced like the extorted Confessions and Cryings out of Malefactors upon the Rack A Pardon sooner openeth the Mouth to an ingenuous Confession than confess and be hanged or confess and be damned therefore if you would freely confess your sins believe first that God is faithful and just to forgive your sins through Christ 1 Joh. 1.9 And if you would pray to God or praise him with lively Affections you must first believe that God will hear you and give you what is best for you for Christ's sake Joh. 16.23 24. otherwise your praying will be only from the Teeth outward for how shall you call on him on whom you have not believed Rom. 10.14 You must come first to Christ the Altar by Faith that by him you may offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually Heb. 13.10 15. Finally to pass from Particulars to the general Assertion laid down in the Direction if you ask What shall we do that we may work the Works of God or get any saving Qualifications I must direct you first to Faith as the Work of Works and the great saving Preparatory to all good Qualifications by answering in our Saviour's words This is the Work of God that ye believe in him whom he hath sent Joh. 6.28 29. DIRECT VIII Be sure to seek for Holiness of Heart and Life only in its due order where God hath placed it after Vnion with Christ Justification and the Gift of the Holy Ghost and in that order seek it earnestly by Faith as a very necessary part of your Salvation EXPLICATION I Hope the Reader will observe warily in all these Directions that the Holiness aimed at as the great End in the whole Discourse consisteth not in the Grace or Act of Faith required peculiarly by the Gospel which though it be a saving Gift of Christ yet is here considered rather as a means precedent to the Reception of Christ and all his Salvation then a part of his Salvation received But the Holiness aimed at consisteth in Conformity to the whole Moral Law to which we are naturally obliged if their had never been any Gospel or any such Duty as believing in Christ for Salvation Now in this Direction three Things are contained that are very necessary to guide us to the attainment of this great End and therefore worthy of our serious Consideration First It is a Matter of high concern to be acquainted with the due Place and Order wherein God hath settled this holy Practice in the Mystery of our Salvation and a great Point of Christian Wisdom to seek it only in that order we know that God is the God of Order and that his infinite Wisdom hath appeared in appointing the Order of his Creatures which we are forced to observe for attainment of our ends in worldly things so also in Spiritual things God hath made an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure 2 Sam. 23.5 the Benefits of it have an orderly dependence each upon other as Links of the same golden Chain though several of them and a Title to them
our Salvation Therefore I conclude that we must necessarily have some Assurance of our Salvation in the direct Act of Faith whereby we are justified sanctified and saved before we can upon any good ground assure our selves that we are already in a state of Salvation by that which they call the Reflect Act. Give me such a saving Faith as will produce such Fruits as these No other Faith will work by Love and therefore will not avail to Salvation in Christ Gal. 5.6 The Apostle James putteth thee upon shewing thy Faith by thy Works James 2.18 And in this Trial this Faith of Assurance cometh off with high Praise and Honour When God calleth his People to work outward Miracles by it all things have been possible to them and it hath frequently brought forth such Works of Righteousness as may be deservedly esteemed great Spiritual Miracles from hence hath proceeded that Heroick Fortitude of the People of God whereby their absolute Obedience to God hath shined forth in doing and suffering those great things which are recorded in the holy Scriptures and in the Histories of the Church And if we be ever called to the fiery Trial as Protestants formerly were we shall find their Doctrine of Assurance to encourage us in suffering for the sake of Christ Seventhly The contrary Doctrine which excludeth Assurance out of the Nature of Saving Faith bringeth forth many evil Fruits it tendeth to bereave our Souls of all Assurance of our Salvation and solid Comfort which is the Life of Religion by placing it after sincere universal Obedience whereas if we have them not first we can never attain to this Obedience and to any Assurance that dependeth on it as hath been proved and this as far as it prevails makes us subject to continual Doubtings concerning our Salvation and to tormenting Fears of Wrath which casteth out true Love to God and can produce no better than slavish hypocritical Service It is one of the principal Pillars whereby manifold Superstitions in Popery are supported as their Monkish Orders their Satisfactions for Sin by Works of Penance Bodily Macerations Whippings Pilgrimages Indulgences trusting on the Merits of Saints c. When once Men have lost the Knowledge of the right way to assure themselves of Salvation they will catch at any Straw to avoid Drowning in the Gulph of Despair There is no way to administer any solid Comfort to the wounded Spirits of those that see themselves void of all Holiness under the Wrath and Curse of God dead in Sin not able so much as to think a good Thought you do but increase their Terror and Anguish if you tell them they must first get Faith and Obedience and when they find they have done that they may perswade themselves that God will receive them into his Grace and Favour Alass they know that they cannot believe nor obey except God prevent them with his Grace and Favour and what if they be even at the Point of Death strugling with Death's Pangs so that they have no time or leisure to get good Qualifications and examine the Goodness of them you must have a more speedy way to comfort such by discovering to them the Free-Promises of Salvation to the worst of Sinners by Faith in Christ and by exhorting them to apply those Promises and trust on Christ confidently for Remission of Sins Holiness and Glory assuring them also that God will help them to believe sincerely on Christ if they desire it with all their Hearts and that it is their Duty to believe because God commands it Several other Evils are occasioned by the same Doctrine Men are unwilling to know the worst of themselves and prone to think their Qualifications better than they are that they may avoid Despair others please and content themselves without any Assurance of their Interest in Christ because they think that is not necessary to Salvation and that but few attain to it and in this they shew little Love to Christ or to their own Souls some foster Doubtings of Salvation as Signs of Humility though they will hypocritically complain of them many mispend their time in poring upon their own Hearts to find out some Evidence of their Interest in Christ when they should rather be imployed in receiving Christ and walking in him by a confident Faith Some are troubled with Doubts whether they should call God Father and what Apprehensions they should have of him in Prayer and are offended at Ministers that in their Publick Prayers use any Expressions that the People cannot joyn in as if they do own God as their God and Father and Christ as their Saviour and upon the same Account they are offended at the Publick singing of many of David's Psalms and avoid partaking of the Lord's Supper because they are not satisfied about their Interest in Christ Though true Believers have some Assurance of Salvation in Saving Faith it self yet it is much weakned in many by this contrary Doctrine and assaulted with many Doubtings and then other good Qualifications must needs be low and weak together with it and so obscure that it is very hard to discern them how hard a thing then will it be for true Believers to assure themselves by the certain Knowledge of their own Sincerity that they are in a state of Grace already which is the only Assurance of Faith Some prescribe Marks and Signs to distinguish Sincerity from Hypocrisie that Believers cannot sufficiently try themselves by them except they have more Knowledge and Experience than Ordinary Thus many Believers walk heavily in the Bitterness of their Souls conflicting with Fears and Doubtings all their Days and this is the Cause that they have so little Courage and Fervency of Spirit in the ways of God and that they so much mind earthly things and are so afraid of Sufferings and Death And if they get some Assurance by the Reflect Act of Faith they often soon lose it again by Sins and Temptations The way to avoid these Evils is to get your Assurance and to maintain it and renew it upon all Occasions by the direct Act of Faith by trusting assuredly on the Name of the Lord and staying your self upon your God when you walk in Darkness and see no light in any of your own Qualifications Isa 50.10 I doubt not but the Experience of many choice Christians will bear witness to this Truth DIRECT XI Endeavour diligently to perform the great work of believing on Christ in a right manner without any delay and then also to continue and increase in your most holy Faith that so your enjoyment of Christ Vnion and Fellowship with him and all holiness by him may be begun continued and increased in you EXPLICATION HAving already discovered to you the powerful and effectual means of an holy practice my remaining work is to lead you to the actual Exercise and Improvement of them for the immediate attainment of the End and I think it may be clearly perceived by the
long accustomed to seek Salvation by the procurement of our own works and to account the way of Salvation by Free Grace foolish and pernicious when our Lusts encline us strongly to the things of the flesh and the World when Satan doth his utmost by his own suggestions and by false Teachers and by worldly Allurements and Terrors to hinder the sincere performance of this Duty Many works that are easie in their own nature prove difficult for us to perform in our Circumstances To forgive our enemies and to love them as our selves is but a motion of the mind easie to be performed in its own nature and yet many that are convinced of their Duty find it a hard matter to bring their hearts to the performance of it It is but a motion of the mind to cast our Care upon God for worldly things and rich Men may think that they can do it easily but poor Men that have great Families find it a hard matter That easie comfortable Duty which Moses exhorted the Israelites to when Pharoah with his Chariot and Horse-men overtook them at the Red Sea Be ye not afraid stand still and see the Salvation of the Lord which he will shew you this day Exod. 14.13 was not easily performed The very easiness of some Duties makes their performance difficult as Naaman the Assyrian was hardly brought to wash and be clean because he thought it to be too slight and easie a Remedy for the Cure of his Leprosie 2 Kings 5.12 13. even in this very case people are offended at the Duty of Believing on Christ as too slight and easie a remedy to Cure the Leprosie of the Soul they would have some harder thing enjoyned them to the attainment of so great an end as this everlasting Salvation The performance of all the moral Law is not accounted work enough for this end Mat. 19.17 20. However easie the work of Believing seemeth to many yet common Experience hath shewed that Men are more easily brought to the most burdensome unreasonable and inhumane Observations as the Jows and Christian Galatians were more easily brought to take upon their Necks the Yoke of Moses's La w which none were able to bear Acts 15.10 The Heathens were more easily brought to burn their Sons and their Daughters in the Fire to their Gods Deut. 12.31 The Papists are brought more easily to the Vows of Chastity and Poverty and Obedience to the most rigorous rules of Monastick Discipline to macerate and torture their Bodies with Fastings Scourgings and Pilgrimages and to bear all the excessive Tyranny of the Papal Hierarchy in a multitude of burdensome superstitious and ridiculous Devotions They that slight the work of Faith for its easiness shew that they were never yet made sensible of innumerable sins and terrible Curse of the Law and Wrath of God that they lye under and of the darkness and vanity of their Minds the corruption and hardness of their Hearts and their bondage under the power of Sin and Satan and have not bin truly humbled without which they can't Believe in a right manner Many sound Believers have found by experience that it hath bin a very hard matter to bring their Hearts to the Duty of Believing it hath cost them vigorous struggles and sharp conflicts with their own Corruptions and Satans Temptations It is so difficult a work that we can't perform it without the mighty working of the Spirit of God in our Hearts who only can make it to be absolutely easie to us and doth make it easie or suffer it to be difficult according as he is pleased to communicate his Grace in various degrees unto our Souls 3. Tho we cannot possibly perform this great work in a right manner until the Spirit of God work Faith in our Hearts by his mighty Power yet it is necessary that we should endeavour And that before we can find the Spirit of God working Faith effectually in us or giving strength to Believe We can perform no holy Duty acceptably except the Spirit of God work it in us and yet we are not hereby excused from working our selves but we are the rather stirred up to the greater diligence Work out your Salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.12 13. The way whereby the Spirit works Faith in the Elect is by stirring them up to endeavour to Believe and this is a way suitable to the means that the Spirit useth i. e. The Exhortations Commands and Invitations of the Gospel which would be of no force if we were not to obey them until we find Faith already wrought in us Neither can we possibly find that the Spirit of God doth effectually work Faith or give strength to Believe until we Act it for all inward Graces as well as all other inward Habits are discerned by their Acts as Seed in the Ground by its Springing We cannot see any such thing as Love to God or Man in our Hearts before we Act it Children know not their Ability to stand upon their Feet until they have made trial by endeavouring so to do so we know not our spiritual Strength until we have learned by Experience from the use and exercise of it neither can we know or assure our seives absolutely that the Spirit of God will give us Strength to Believe before we Act Faith for such a Knowledge and Assurance if it be right is saving Faith it self in part and whosoever trusteth on Christ assuredly for strength to believe by his Spirit doth in effect trust on Christ for his own Salvation which is inseparably joyned with the Grace of saving Faith Tho the Spirit worketh other Duties in us by Faith yet he worketh Faith in us immediately by hearing knowing and understanding the Word Faith cometh by Hearing and Hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10.13 And in the Word he makes no absolute Promise or Declaration that he will work Faith in this or that unbelieving Heart or that he will give strength to Believe to any one in particular or begin the work of Believing in Christ for Faith it self is the first Grace whereby we have a particular Interest in any saving Promise It is a thing hidden in the secret Counsel and Purpose of God concerning us whether he will give us his Spirit and saving Faith until our Election be discovered by our Believing actually Therefore as soon as we know the Duty of Believing we are to apply our selves immediately to the vigorous performance of the Duty and in so doing we shall find that the Spirit of Christ hath strengthned us to Believe tho we knew not certainly that it would do it before-hand The Spirit cometh undiscernably upon the Elect to work Faith within them like the Wind that bloweth where it lists and none knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth but only we hear the sound of it and thereby know it when it is
from your evil ways for why will ye die O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Christ testifieth that he would often have gathered the Children of Jerusalem as a hen c. and they would not Mat. 23.37 And the Apostle Paul testifieth that God will have all men to be saved c. 1 Tim. 1.4 you are to reject and abandon all thoughts that are contrary to this persuasion What if few be saved Thy Salvation will not make the number too great for few will follow thee in the Duty of Believing What if the Wrath of God be revealed from Heaven against thee in many terrible Judgments and the Word and thine own Conscience condemn thee and Christ seem to reckon thee no better than a Dog as he did the Woman of Canaan Mat. 15.26 Thou art to make a good interpretation of all these things that the end of them is to drive thee to Christ as this was the End of the Curses of the Law and all the terrible Dispensations of them Rom. 10.4 If a Prophet or Angel from Heaven sent of God on purpose to declare that the Sentence of Everlasting Damnation is declared against thee it would be thy Duty to believe that God sent him to give thee timely warning for this very end that thou mightest Believe and turn to God by Faith and Repentance Jeremiah prophesied against the Jews that God would pluck them up pull them down and destroy them for their sins yet he himself taught them If they turned from their evil ways God would repent of the evil Jer. 18.7 8 11. Jonah preached nothing but certain Destruction of Nineveh to be executed upon them within 40 days Chap. 3.4 yet the intent of that terrible message was that those Heathenish People might escape Destruction by Repentance The most absolute and peremptory denunciations of Divine Vengeance against us while we are in this World must be always understood with a secret reserve of Salvation for us upon our Faith and Repentance And we are to account that the reason why God doth so terribly denounce his Judgments against us by his Word is that we may escape them by flying for Refuge to his free Mercy in Christ Take heed of fostering any thoughts that God hath absolutely decreed to shew no saving Mercy to you or that you have already committed the unpardonable sin or that it is in vain for you to attempt the work of Believing because God will not help you in it If such thoughts prevail in your hearts they will do you more hurt than the worst blasphemous thoughts that terrifie you or any of the grossest Abominations that ever you were guilty of because they obstruct your Believing on Christ for Salvation The Spirit and the Bride say Come Christ saith Whosoever will let him take of the water of Life freely Rev. 22.17 Therefore we are to abandon all thoughts that hinder our coming to Christ as very sinful and pernicious arising in us from our own Corruptions and Satan's Delusions and utterly opposite to the mind of Christ and teachings of the Spirit and what ground can we have to entertain such unbelieving thoughts Hath God made us of his Privy-Council that we should be able to know that God hath decreed us to Damnation before it be manifest by our final unbelief and impenitence As for the unpardonable sin it consisteth in renouncing the way of Salvation by Christ with the whole heart after we have attained to the knowledge of it and are convinced of the Truth of it by the Gospel It s the sin that the Christian Hebrews would have bin guilty of if they had revolted from Christianity to the Religion of the unbelieving Jews that accounted Christ to be an Impostor and were most rancorous persecutors of him and his ways Heb. 6.4 5. They that have committed that sin continue implacable malicious Enemies to Christ and his ways to the end without any repentance Therefore if you can but find that you desire seriously to get an interest in Christ and to be better Christians than you are if you be troubled and grieved that your Hearts and Lives are so wicked and that you want Faith Love and true Obedience yea if your Hearts be not maliciously bent to persecute the Gospel and prefer Atheism Licentiousness or any false Religion before it you have no cause to suspect your selves to be guilty of this unpardonable sin 6. Add to all these a full persuasion of the incomparable glorious Excellency of Christ and of the way of Salvation by him You are to esteem the enjoyment of Christ as the only Salvation and true happiness and such an happiness as hath in it unsearchable Riches of Glory and will make our Cup to run over with exceeding abundance of Peace and Joy and full of Glory to all Eternity We must account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord c. Phil. 3.8 Incline your Wills and Affections to choose and embrace Christ as the Chief Good and never to rest satisfied without the Enjoyment of him and to reject every thing that stands in Competition with him or the Enjoyment of him Christ is precious in the esteem of all true Believers 1 Pet. 2.7 Their high esteem of his incomparable preciousness and excellency induceth them to sell all that they may buy this Pearl of great price Mat. 13.46 this maketh them to say Lord evermore give us of this Bread that cometh down from Heaven and giveth Life to the World Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the Words of Eternal Life Joh. 6.32 33 68. because of the savour of his good Ointments his Name is as Ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love him Cant. 1.3 They are sick of love to him because he is in their Eyes the chiefest of ten thousand Cant. 5.8 10. As the Glory of God that appeared in the wonderful Beauty of the Temple and in the Wisdom and Glory of Solomon drew Worshipers to God from the utmost parts of the Earth so the unparallel'd excellency of Christ which was prefigured by the Glory of Solomon and the Temple doth more powerfully draw Believers in these Gospel-days The Devil who is the God of this World knows how necessary it is for our Salvation to discern all the Glory and Excellency of Christ and therefore where the Gospel is preached he maketh it his great work to Eclypse the Glory of Christ in the Ministry and to blind the minds of the People lest the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine into them 2 Cor. 4.4 One that is convinced of the truth of the Gospel may be averse to the embracing of it until he see also the goodness of it that Christ is altogether lovely and excellent I come now to the second principal Act of Faith whereby Christ himself and his Spirit and all his saving Benefits are actually received into the Heart which is Believing on Christ as revealed and freely
walk according to the Principles and Practices of your old natural state and you will be moved thereby to yield to the Dominion of Sin and Satan to withdraw your selves from God and Godliness as Adam was moved from the sight of his own Nakedness to hide himself from God Gen. 3.10 Therefore your way to a holy practice is first to conquer and spoil such unbelieving thoughts by trusting confidently on Christ and persuading your selves by Faith that his Righteousness Spirit Glory and all his spiritual Benefits are yours and he dwelleth in you and you in him In the might of this Confidence you should go forth to the performance of the Law and you will be strong against Sin and Satan and able to do all things through Christ that strengthens you This consident perswasion is of great necessity to the right framing and disposing our Hearts to walk according to our new state in Christ The Life of Faith principally consisteth in it And herein it eminently appeareth that Faith is an Hand not only to receive Christ but also to work by him and that it cannot be effectual for our Sanctification except it contain in it some Assurance of our Interest in Christ as hath bin shewed Thus we act as those that are above the Sphear of Nature advanced to Union and Fellowship with Christ The Apostle maintained in his Heart a perswasion that Christ had loved him and given himself for him and hereby he was enabled to live to God in Holiness through Christ living in him by Faith He teacheth us also that we must maintain the like perswasion if we would walk holily in Christ We must know that our old man is crucified with him and we must reckon our selves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.6 This is the means whereby we may be filled with the Spirit strong in the Lord and the power of his might which God would not require of us if he had not appointed the means Eph. 6. Christ himself walked in a constant perswasion of his excellent state he set the Lord always before him and was perswaded that because God was at his right hand he should not he moved Psal 16.8 How should it be rationally expected that a Man should Act according to this new state without Assurance that he is in it It s a rule of Common Prudence in all worldly Callings and Conditions that every one must know and consider well his own State lest he should act proudly above it or sordidly below it and it is a hard thing to bring some to a right estimate of their own worldly Conditions If the same rule were observed in Spiritual things doubtless the knowledg and perswasion of the Glory and Excellency of our new state in Christ would more elevate the hearts of Believers above all sordid Salvery to their Lusts and enlarge them to run chearfully the ways of Gods Commandments If Christians knew their own Strength better they would enterprize greater things for the Glory of God This Knowledge is difficultly attained it is only by Faith and spiritual Illumination the best know but in part and hence it is that the Conversation of Believers falleth so much below their holy and heavenly Calling 6. Consider what Endowments Priviledges or Properties of your new State are most meet and forcible to incline and strengthen your Heart to love God above all and to renounce all Sin and to give up your self to Universal Obedience to his Commands and strive to walk in the persuasion of them that you may attain to the Practice of these great Dutiesâ— I may well joyn these together because to love the Lord with all our Hearts Might and Soul is the first and great Commandment which influenceth us to all Obedience with a hatred and detestation of all Sin as it 's contrary and hateful to God The same effectual means that produceth the one will also produce the other and Holiness chiefly consisteth in these So the chief Blessings of our holy State are most meet and forcible to enable us for the immediate performance of them and are to be made use of to this end by Faith Particularly you must believe stedfastly that all your Sins are blotted out and that you are reconciled to God and have access into his Favour by the Blood of Christ and that he is your God and Father and altogether Love to you and your all-sufficient everlasting Portion and Happiness through Christ Such Apprehensions as these do present God as a very lovely Object to our Hearts and do thereby allure and win our Affections that cannot be forced by Commands or Threatnings but must be sweetly won and drawn by Allurements We must not harbour any Suspicions that God will prove a terrible everlasting Enemy to us if we would love him for there is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out Fear because Fear hath Torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love we love him because he first loved us 1 Joh. 4.18 19. David loved the Lord because he was persuaded that he was his Strength Rock Fortress his God and the horn of his salvation Psal 18.1 2. Love that causeth Obedience unto the Law must proceed from a good Conscience purged from sin and this good Conscience must proceed from Faith unfeigned whereby we apprehend the remission of our sins our Reconciliation with God by the merits of the blood of Christ 1 Tim. 1.5 with Heb. 9.14 For the same end that your Hearts may be rightly fitted and framed for the performance of these principal Duties the Holy Scripture directeth you to walk in the perswasion of other principal Endowments of your new state As that you have fellowship with the Father and the Son 1 Joh. 1.3 That you are the Temple of the living God 2 Cor. 6.16 That you live by the Spirit Gal. 5.25 That you are called to Holiness and created in Christ Jesus unto good works That God will sanctisie you wholly and make you perfect in holiness at the last 1 Thes 5.23 24. Eph. 2.10 That your old man is crucified with Christ and through him you are dead unto sin and alive unto God and being made free from sin you are become the Servants of Righteousness and have your Fruit unto Holiness and the End Everlasting Life Rom. 6.6 22. You are Dead and your Life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is your Life shall appear then shall you also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Such perswasions as these when they are deeply rooted and constantly maintained in our Hearts do strongly Arm and Encourage us to practise Universal Obedience in opposition to every sinful Lust Because we look upon it not only as our Duty but our great Priviledge to do all things through Christ strengthning of us and God doth certainly work in us both to will and to do by these Principles because they properly belong to the Gospel
on thy sin and misery and Christs excellency that so thou may'st be inclined in thy heart to believe Song 1.3 Gal. 2.16 Ps 9.10 for this is the way God useth to beget faith Isa 55.3 But if thou hast a desire and inclination to fly from thy self to Christ in the bent of thy heart so that thou preferrest Christ above all then the spirit hath begun and will carry on the work so that now thou mayst pray confidently for faith Cant. 1.4 Luk. 11.13 Mar. 9.24 Obj. III. But without holiness no Man shall see God Heb. 12.14 And how shall I do to get holiness And I cannot sanctifie my self and this confidence you speak of may slacken my diligence A. If thou hast Righteousness in Christ God will make thee holy and this confidence is the only way to get Holiness because of that Righteousness Rom. 5.21 The new Covenant is confirmed in him which promiseth a new Heart if sin be forgiven thou shalt be delivered from the power and quickned by the same Death and Resurrection of Christ whereby thou art Justified Col. 2.12 13. Exhort III. It Exhorteth them that are justified by Faith 1. To walk humbly as nothing of themselves to acknowledge themselves Enemies to God by Nature and acknowledge sins in the greatness and heinousness of them that they are saved freely by a Righteousness of another not by their own yea so far fallen that the Justice of God would have been against them if it had not been satisfied Psal 71.16 Rom. 3.27 but now see that Christ hath satisfied and his Righteousness is above their Sins Ezek. 26.31 2. To praise and glorifie God through Christ for this Grace Oh! what abundant grace and love appears in Gods washing and cleansing us by his Sons blood Rev. 1.5 Gal. 2.20 and in making his Son Sin and Curse for us Rom. 5.5 8. 1 Joh. 4.9 10. Ch. 3.16 2 Cor. 8.9 and what a glorious excellent Righteousness hath God given us in Christ Isa 61.10 3. To walk comfortably upon the account of this Righteousness Isa 40.1 2. Triumph over Sin and Affliction Rom. 8.33.39 Be confident in expecting great things from God Heb. 10.22 for though you be unworthy and grace will shew you your own unworthiness yet you stand upon the Righteousness of Christ glory in the hope of Gods glory for if Christ died to reconcile you when you were Enemies much more will he save you by his life now you are reconciled Rom. 5.3 10. Ask boldly for what you want for God is in Christs Manhood as the Mercy-seat when ever Sin stings you and objections trouble you look to the Brazen Serpent confess Sin and trust for Pardon meditate on Christs Righteousness and the abundance of grace in him Rom. 8.32 If you find never so much Ungodliness no good qualifications yet Christ is at hand for your comfort Isa 50.10 2 Thes 2.16 17. In all your Sins apply your selves to this Fountain Zach. 13. 1 Joh. 1.7 If Sin lye on conscience it weakens peace and spiritual strength lye not under guilt with a slavish fear you have a Righteousness to deliver you from it applying it by Faith that you may have no more conscience of Sin as condemning Heb. 10.2 Psal 32. you have a better Righteousness than any Perfectionists can have Exhort IV. Hold fast this way of Justification notwithstanding all the noise that is made in the World against it for the Devil will strive to scare you out of it or steal it from you as he did from the Jews from the Galatians the Papists and many Protestants Gal. 1.6 And the Apostle reckons it 's by a Spiritual bewitchery he will strive to get you to trust on Works and tell you it is for the promoting of Holiness and to trust on Works to get Christ and to lay Works lowest in the foundation If you lose this Righteousness of Christ under any colour or pretence whatever you lose all Gal. 5.2 3. Do not so dishonour Christ as to think of procuring that by Works which you have fully in Christ think not that the Gospel requires another Justification to gain this for the Gospel is no legal Covenant but a Declaration of the Righteousness of Faith and we being Justified are Heirs by Adoption and Promise Gal. 3.25 This is the Doctrine which glorifieth God and abaseth the Creature which is a great mark of its truth Beware therefore of carnal reason which will go quite contrary and make Christs righteousness a stumbling Stone to thee 1 Pet. 2.8 Rom. 9.32 â—3 V. Walk as one that enjoys the favour of God in Christ Let him have the honour of it walk therefore in Holiness knowing by what price you are redeemed 1 Pet. 1.17 18. 2 Cor. 5.14 15. 2 Pet. 1.5 11. 1 Cor. 6. last Love God that hath loved you first 1 Joh. 4.19 Psal 116.16 Believe that God will inable to Holiness Rom. 6.14 Particularly walk in Love to the Saints exercise forgiveness to your Enemies sense of your own Sins and Gods forgiving you will cause you to pity and forgive others else you cannot pray or trust for forgiveness of your own Sins upon reasonable grounds Eph. 4.31 32. Mat. 6.14 15. Mat. 18.21 Desire grace may be exalted upon others and wait patiently for the full Declaration of Justification at the great day Gal. 5.5 Act. 3.19 for here your Justification is known only by Faith but in outward things you are dealt with as a Sinner then your Righteousness shall appear openly and you shall be dealt with according to it FINIS
THE Gospel-Mystery OF SANCTIFICATION Opened in Sundry Practical Directions Suited especially to the Case of those who labour under the guilt and power of Indwelling Sin To which is added a Sermon of Justification 1 Cor. 1.27 28 29 30 31. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty And base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to nought things that are That no flesh should glory in his presence But of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption That according as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. By Mr. WALTER MARSHAL late Preacher of the Gospel LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1692. THE PREFACE READER MR. Walter Marshal Composer of these Directions how to attain to that practice and manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness was Educated in New Colledge in Oxford and was a Fellow of the said Colledge and afterwards he was chosen a Fellow of the Colledge at Winchester but was put under the Bartholomew Bushel with nigh two Thousand more Lights a Sin not yet repented of whose illuminations made the Land a Goshen He was esteemed a Presbyterian and was called to be Pastor to a People at Gospert in Hampshire where he shined though he had not the Publick Oile the substance of these Meditations were there Spun out of his own Experiences he having been much exercised with troubled Thoughts and that for many Years and had by many Mortifying Methods sought Peace of Conscience but notwithstanding all his Troubles still increased Whereupon he consulted others particularly Mr. Baxter whose Writings he had been much conversant with who thereupon told Mr. Marshal he took them too Legally He afterwards consulted an Eminent Divine giving him an Account of the State of his Soul and particularizing his Sins that lay heavy on his Conscience who in his Reply told him He had forgot to mention the greatest Sin of all the Sin of Unbelief in not believing on the Lord Jesus for the Remission of his Sins and Sanctifying his Nature Hereupon he set himself to the studying and preaching of Christ and attained to eminent Holiness great peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost Mr. Marshal's dying Words were these The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord having but just before said to those about him that he now dyed in the full perswasion of the Truth and in the comfort of that Doctrine which he had Preached the sum whereof is contained in the ensuing Discourse Some time since he was translated by Death Elijah-like dropping these sheets as his Mantle for succeeding Elisha's to go forth with for the Conversion of Sinners and Comfort of drooping Souls These Papers are the profound Experiences of a studious Holy Soul Learned of the Father coming from his very Heart and smell of no Party or Design but for Holiness and Happiness yet it is to be feared they will scarcely go down with the heady Notionalists of this Age who are of the Tribe of Reuben wavering with every Wind of Modish Doctrine but in Judah it will be praised and we may hope that many Shrubs and Cedars hereby may advance in knowledge and comfort But not to detain thee longer read over all these Directions that you may fully understand the Author or read none if you do it with the serious humble spirit in which they were wrote it may be hop'd the matter being so weighty and from so able an Hand through the Grace of God they will sink into thy Conscience and make thee a solid Christian full of Faith Holiness and Consolation N. N. THE Author of these Directions was well known to me and was with me in my House a Month together above twenty years past and I esteem him a Person deserving the Character which this Preface giveth him T. Woodcock The GOSPEL MYSTERY OF SANCTIFICATION DIRECTION I. That we may acceptably perform the Duties of Holiness and Righteonsness required in the Law our first Work is to learn the powerful and effectual Means whereby we may attain to so Great an End EXPLICATION THIS Direction may serve instead of a Preface to prepare the Understanding and Attention of the Reader for those that follow And First It acquainteth you with the Great End for which all those Means are designed that are the principal Subject to be here treated of the Scope of all is To teach you how you may attain to that Practice and Manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness Obedience True Religion and which God requireth of us in the Law particularly in the Moral Law Exod. 20. summed up in the Ten Commandments and more briefly in those Two great Commandments of Love to God and our Neighbour Mat. 22.37 39. and more largely explained throughout the Holy Scriptures My work is to shew how the Duties of this Law may be done when they are known therefore expect not that I should delay my intent to help you to the knowledge of them by any large Exposition of them which is a Work already performed in several Catechisms and Commentaries yet that you may not miss the Mark for want of discerning of it take notice in few words that the Holiness which I would bring you to is spiritual Rom. 7.14 It consists not only in external Works of Piety and Charity but in the Holy Thoughts Imaginations and Affections of the Soul and chiefly in Love from whence all other Good Works must flow or else they are not acceptable to God not only in refraining the execution of sinful Lusts but in lusting and delighting to do the Will of God and in a chearful Obedience to God without repining fretting grudging at any Duty as if it were a grievous Yoak and Burthen to you Take Notice further That the Law which is your Mark is exceeding broad Psal 119.96 and yet not the more easie to be hit because you must aim to hit it in every Duty of it with a performance of equal breadth or else you cannot hit it all Isai 2.10 The Lord is not at all loved with that Love that is due to him as Lord of all if he be not loved with all our Heart Spirit and Might We are to love every thing in him his Justice Holiness Sovereign Authority All-seeing Eye and all his Decrees Commands Judgments and all his Doings We are to love him not only better than other things but singly as Only Good the Fountain of all Goodness and to reject all fleshly and worldly Enjoyments even our own Lives as if we hated them when they stand in competition with our Enjoyment of him
meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand And shall we dare to rush into Battel against all the Powers of Darkness all Worldly Terrors and Allurements and our own inbred domineering Corruptions without considering whether we have sufficient Spiritual Furniture to stand in the Evil day Yet many content themselves with such an ability to will and do their Duty as they would have to be given to Men universally whereby they are no better enabled for the Spiritual Battel than the generality of the World that lie vanquished under the wicked One and therefore their standing is not at all secured by it It is an hard matter to find what this universal ability is that so many contend so earnestly for of what it consisteth by what means it is conveyed to us and maintained Bodily Ability hath Spirits Nerves Ligaments Bones to subsist by but this Spiritual Universal Ability seemeth to be some occult Quality that no sufficient Account can be given how it is conveyed or of what it is constituted That none may deceive themselves and miscarry in their Enterprizes for Holiness by depending on such a weak occult Quality I have here shewed four Endowments of which a true ability for the Practice of Holiness must necessarily be constituted and by which it must subsist and be maintained intending to shew afterward by what means they are given unto us and whether the inclination or perswasion here mentioned be perfect or imperfect And they are of such a mysterious nature that such as own the necessity of Endowments to frame them for Holiness are prone to think that less than these will serve and that some of these frame us rather for Licentiousness than Holiness as they are here placed before any actual performance of the Moral Law and that some things contrary to them would put us into a better frame for Holiness against all such surmises I shall endeavour such a demonstration of these Endowments particularly as may gain the assent of right Reason insisting on them in the same order wherein I have placed them in the Direction In the first place I assert that an Inclination and Propensity of the Heart to the Duties of the Law is necessary to frame and enable us for the immediate Practice of them and I mean not such a blind Propensity as inanimate Creatures and Brutes have to their natural Operations but such an one as is meet for intelligent Creatures whereby they are by the Conduct of Reason prone and bent to approve and chuse their Duty and averse to the Practice of Sin And therefore I have intimated that the Three other Endowments mentioned in the Direction are subservient to this as the chief of all which are sufficient to make it a rational Propensity This is contrary to those that out of Zeal for Obedience according to Knowledge contend so earnestly for Free-will as a necessary and sufficient Endowment to enable us to perform our Duty when once we are convinc'd of it and of our Obligation to it and that extol this Endowment as the great Benefit that Universal Redemption hath blessed all Mankind with though they Consider this Free-will without any actual Inclination to Good yea they cannot but acknowledge that in most of Mankind that have it it is encumbred with an actual Bent and Propensity of the Heart altogether to evil Such a Free-will as this is can never free us from Slavery to Sin and Satan and fit us for the Practice of the Law and therefore is not worthy the pains of those that contend so hotly for it Neither is the Will so free as is necessary for the Practice of Holiness until it be endued with an inclination and Propensity thereunto as may appear by the follow Arguments First The Duties of the Law are of such a nature that they cannot possibly be performed while there is wholly an aversness or mere indifferency of the Heart to the Performance of them and no good Inclination and Propensity toward the Practice of them Because the chief of all the Commandments is to love the Lord with our whole Heart Might and Soul to love every thing that is in him to love his Will and all his Ways and to like them as good and all Duties must be influenced in their Performance by this Love we must delight to do the Will of God it must be to us as our Meat and Drink we must long and thirst for it it must be sweeter to us than the honey or honey comb Psal 40.8.30.4 34. Psal 63 1. and 119.20 and 19.10 And this Love Likeing Delight Longing Thirsting Sweet-relishing must be continued to the end and the first indeliberate Motions of Lust must be regulated by Love to God and our Neighbour and Sin must be lusted against Gal. 5.17 and abhorred Psal 36.8 If it were true Obedience as some would have it to love our Duty only as a Market-man loveth foul Ways to the Market or as a Sick man loveth an unpleasant medicinal Potion or as a Captive Slave loveth his hard Work for fear of a greater Evil then it might be performed with averseness of Inclination but we must love it as the Market-man Gain as the Sick man Health as pleasant Meat and-Drink as the Captive Liberty Doubtless there can be no Power in the Will for this kind of Service without an Agreeableneâ—â— of our Inclination to the Will of God a Heart according to his own Heart an Averseness of our Hearts from Sin and a kind of Antipathy against Sin for we know the Proverb Like loveth like there must be an Agreeableness of the Person or thing beloved to the Disposition of the Lover Love to God must flow from a clean heart 1 Tim. 1.5 Cleansed from evil Propensities and Inclinations and Reason will tell us that the first Motions of Lust which fall not under our Choice and Deliberation cannot be avoided without a fixed Propensity of the Heart to Holiness 2ly The Image of God wherein God according to his infinite Wisdom judged it meet to frame the first Adam in righteousness and true holiness and uprightness Gen. 1.27 Ephes 4.24 Eccles 7.29 consisted in an actual Bent and Propensity of his Heart to the Practice of Holiness not in a mere Power of Will to chuse Good or Evil For this in it self is neither holy nor unholy but only a Ground-work on which either the Image of God or of Satan may be drawn nor in an indifference of Propensity to the choice of Sin or Duty for this is a wicked Disposition in an intelligent Creature that knoweth his Duty and fitteth us only to halt betwixt God and Baal God set Adam's Soul at first wholly in a right Bent and Inclination though Adam might act contrary to it if he would as we may be prevailed upon to do some things contrary to our natural or rational Inclinations and it is easie to fail of our Duty though great Preparation and Furniture be required for the Performance
of it The second Adam also the Lord Jesus Christ was born an holy thing Luke 1 35. with an holy Disposition of his Soul and Propensity to Goodness and can we reasonably hope to arise to the Life of Holiness from which the first Adam fell or to be Imitators of Christ since Duty is made so difficult by the Fall if we be not renewed in a measure according to the same Image of God and enabled with such a Propensity and Inclination 3ly Original Corruption whereby we are dead to God and Godliness from the Birth and made willing Slaves to the performance of all actual Sins until the Son of God make us free confisteth in a Propensity and Inclination of the Heart to Sin and Averseness to Holiness Without this Propensity to Sin what can that Law of sin in our members be that warreth against the law of our mind and leadeth us captive to the service of sin Rom. 7.23 What is that Poison in us for which Men may be called serpents vipers What is that Spirit of whoredoms in men by reason of which they will not frame their doings to turn to God Hos 5.4 How is the tree first corrupt and then its fruit corrupt Matth. 12.33 How can Man be said to be abominable and filthy that drinketh iniquity like water Job 15.16 How should the mind of the flesh be continual enmity to the Law of God Rom. 8.7 I know there is also a blindness of Understanding and other things belonging to Original Corruption which conduceth to this evil Propensity of the Will but yet this Propensity it self is the great evil the indwelling Sin which produceth all actual Sins and must of necessity be removed or restrained by restoring that contrary Inclination wherein the Image of God confisted or else we shall be backward and reprobate to every good work and whatever Freedom the Will hath shall be employed only in the service of Sin 4ly God restoreth his People to Holiness by giving to them a new heart a new spirit and taking away the heart of stone out of their flesh and giving them an heart of flesh Ezek. 36.26 27. And he circumciseth their heart to love him with their whole heart and Soul And he requireth that we should be transformed in the renewing of our mind that we may prove what is his acceptable will Rom. 12.2 And David prayeth for the same end that God would create in him a clean heart and renew a right spirit within him Psal 51.10 If any one can judge that this new clean circumcised Heart this Heart of Flesh this new right Spirit is such an one as hath no actual Inclination and Propensity to good but only a Power to chuse good or evil undeservedly call'd Free-will with a present Inclination to evil or an indifference of Propensity to both contraries it will not be worth my labour to convince such a Judgment only let him consider whether David could account such an Heart to be clean and right when he prayeth Psal 119.36 Incline mine heart to thy testimonies and not to coveteousness The second Endowment necessary to enable us for the immediate Practice of Holiness and concurring with the other two that follow to work in us a rational Propensity to this Practice is that we be well perswaded of our Reconciliation with God We must reckon that the breach of Amity which Sin hath made betwixt God and us is made up by a firm Reconciliation to his Love and Favour and herein I include the great Benefit of Justification as the means whereby we are reconciled to God which is described in Scripture either by forgiving our Sins or by the imputation of Righteousness to us Rom. 4.5 6 7. because both are contained in one and the same justifying Act as one act of Illumination comprehends expulsion of Darkness and introduction of Light one act of Repentance containeth Mortification of Sin and vivification to Righteousness and every Motion from any thing to its contrary is but one and the same though it may be expressed by divers Names with respect to either of the two contrary terms the one of which is abolished the other introduced by it This is a great Mystery contrary to the Apprehensions not only of the Vulgar but of some learned Divines that we must be reconciled to God and justified by the Remission of our Sins and imputation of Righteousness before any sincere Obedience to the Law that we may be enabled for the Practice of it They account that this Doctrine tendeth to the Subversion of an holy Practice and is a great Pillar of Antinemianism and that the only way to establish sincere Obedience is to make it rather a condition to be performed before our actual Justification and Reconciliation with God Therefore some late Divines have thought sit to bring the Doctrine of former Protestants concerning Justification to their Anvil and to hammer it into another form that it might be more free from Antinomianism and effectual to secure an holy Practice but their Labour is vain and pernicious tending to Antinemian profaneness or painted Hypocrisice at best neither can the true Practice of Holiness be secure except the Perswasion of our Justification and Reconciliation with God be first obtained without works of the law that we may be enabled thereby to do them as I shall now prove by several Arguments intending also to shew in the following Directions that such a Perswasion of the Love of God as God giveth to his People tendeth only to Holiness though a Misperswasion of it be in many an Occasion of Licenciousness First When the first Adam was framed for the Practice of Holiness at his Creation he was highly in the Favour of God and had no Sin imputed to him and was accounted righteous in the sight of God according to his present state because he was made upright according to God's Image and there is no reason to doubt but that these Qualifications were his advantage for an holy Practice and the Wisdom of God judged them good for that end and as soon as he lost them he became dead in sin The second Adam also in our nature was the Beloved of the Father accounted righteous in the sight of God without the Imputation of any Sin to him except what his Office was to bear on the behalf of others And can we reasonably expect to be Imitators of Christ by performing more difficult Obedience than the first Adam's was before the Fall except the like Advantages be given to us by Reconciliation and Remission of Sins and imputation of a Righteousness given by God to us when we have none of our own Secondly Those that know that natural Deadness under the Power of Sin and Satan are fully convinced that if God leave them to their own Hearts they can do nothing but Sin and that they can do no good work except it please God of his great Love and Mercy to work it in them Joh. 8.36 Philip. 2.13
judge that from the same cause proceedeth the continual Malice Rancour Rage Blasphemy of the Devil and many notorious wicked Men against God and Godliness Some may think Job uncharitable in suspecting not meerly that his Sons had sinned but that they had been so abominably wicked as to curse God in their Hearts Job 1.5 but Job well understood that if the guilt of any ordinary Sin lie upon the Conscience it will make the Soul to wish secretly that God were not or that he was not so just a Judge which is a secret Cursing of God that cannot be avoided until our Consciences be purged from the guilt of Sin by the offering of Christ for us which was then figured out by the Burnt-offerings of Job for his Sons Fifthly God hath abundantly discovered to us in his Word that his method in bringing Men from Sin to Holiness of Life is first to make them know that he loveth them and that their Sins are blotted out When he gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai he first discovered himself to be their God that had given them a sure Pledge of his Salvation by their Delivery from Egypt in the Preface Exod. 20.2 And during all the time of the Old Testament God was pleased to make the entrance into Religion to be by Circumcision which was not only a Sign but also a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith whereby God justifieth People while they are considered as ungodly Rom. 4.11.5 and this Seal was administred to Children of eight Days old before they could perform any Condition of sincere Obedience for their Justification that their Furniture for an holy Practice might be ready before hand Furthermore in the time of the Old Testament God appointed divers Washings and the Blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean to prepare and sanctifie them for other Parts of his Worship in his Tabernacle and Temple to figure out his purging of their Consciences from dead works by the Blood of Christ that they might serve the living God Heb. 9.9 10 13 14 22. This I say was then figurative Sanctification as the word Sanctification is taken in a large Sense comprehending all things that prepare us for the Service of God chiefly the Remission of Sin Heb. 10.10 14 18. Though if it be taken in a strict sence respecting only our Conformity to the Law it must necessarily be placed after Justification according to the usual Method of Protestant Divines God also minded them of the necessity of purging away their guilt first that their Service might be acceptable by commanding them to offer the Sin-offering before the Burnt-offering Levit. 5.8 and 16.3 11. And least the guilt of their Sins should pollute the Service of God notwithstanding all their particular Expiations God was pleased to appoint a general Atonement for all their Sins one day every Year wherein the Scape goat was to bear upon him all their Iniquities unto a Land not inhabited Levit. 16.22 34. Under the New Testament God useth the same Method in loving us first and washing us from our Sins by the Blood of Christ that he may make us Priests to offer the Sacrifices of Praise and all good Works to God even the Father He entreth us into his Service by washing away our sins in Baptism he seedeth and strengtheneth us for his Service by Remission of Sins given to us in the Blood of Christ at the Lord's Supper He exhorteth us to obey him because he hath already loved us and our Sins are already pardoned Forgive one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ hath loved us Ephes 4.32 and 5.1 2. I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name sake Love not the world neither the things of the world 1 Jo. 2.12 15. I might quote abundance of Texts of the same nature We may clearly see by all this that God hath accounted it a matter of great Importance and hath condescended to take wonderful care in providing plentiful means both under the Old and New Testament that his People might be first cleansed from guilt and reconciled to himself to fit them for the acceptable Practice of Holiness Away then with all the contrary Methods of the new Divinity The Third Endowment necessary to enable us for the Practice of Holiness without which a Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God would be of little efficacy to work in us a rational Propensity to it is that we be perswaded of our future Enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly Happiness This must precede our holy Practice as a cause disposing and alluring us to it This Affertion hath several sorts of Adversaries to oppose it some account that a Perswasion of our own future Happiness before we have persevered in sincere Obedience tendeth to Licentiousness and that the way to do good Works is rather to make them a Condition necessary for the procuring of this Perswasion Others condemn all Works that we are allured or stirred up to by the future Enjoyment of the heavenly Happiness as legal mercenary flowing from self-love and not from any pure Love to God and they figure out sincere Godliness by a Man bearing Fire in one hand to burn up Heaven and Water in the other to quench Hell intimating that the true Service of God must not proceed at all from hope of Reward or sear of Punishment but only from Love To establish the Truth asserted against these Errors that are so contrary to it and to each other I shall propose the ensuing Considerations First The nature of the Duties of the Law is such that they cannot be sincerely and universally practiced without this Endowment That this Endowment must be present in us is sufficiciently proved already by all that I have said concerning the necessity of the Perswasion of our firm Reconciliation with God by our Justification to prepare us for this Practice because that includeth a Perswasion of this future Happiness or else it is of little worth All that I have to add here is that sincere Obedience cannot rationally subsist except it be allured encouraged and supported by this Perswasion Let me therefore suppose a Sadducee believing no Happiness after this Life and put the Question Can such an one love God with his whole Heart Might and Soul Will he not think it reasonable rather to lessen and moderate his Love towards God lest he should be overmuch troubled to part with him by Death We account it most reasonable to sit loose in our Affections from things that we must part with Can such an one be satisfied with the Enjoyment of God as his Happiness Will he not rather account that the Enjoyment of God and all religious Duties are Vanities as well as other things because in a little time we shall have no more Benefit by them than if they had never been
continue without it for some considerable time Ephes 2.12 And though some may have the Spirit of Faith given to them from their Mothers Womb as John the Baptist Luke 1.15.44 yet even in them there is a natural Being by Generation before there can be a Spiritual Being by Regeneration 1 Cor. 15.46 Hence ariseth the Consideration of two States or Conditions of the Children of Men in Matters that appertain to God and Godliness the one of which is vastly different from the other Those that have the Happiness of a New-birth and Creation in Christ by Faith are thereby placed in a very excellent State consisting in the Enjoyment of the Righteousness of Christ for their Justification and of the Spirit of Christ to live by in Holiness here and Glory for ever as hath already appeared Those that are not in Christ by Faith cannot be in a better State than that which they received together with their Nature from the first Adam by being once born and created in him or than they can attain to by the Power of that Nature with any such help as God is pleased to afford to it This latter I call a Natural State because it consisteth in such things as we have either received by natural Generation or can attain to by natural Power through Divine Assistance as the Scripture calleth Man in this State the natural Man 1. Cor. 2.14 The former I call a new State because we enter into it by a new Birth in Christ and I may call it a Spiritual State according to the Scripture because it received from Christ the quickening Spirit and the Natural and Spiritual Man are opposed 1 Cor. 2.14 15. though some call both these States Spiritual because the everlasting Weal or Woe of the Soul or Spirit of Man is chiefly concerned in them It is a common Error of those that are in a corrupt natural State that they seek to reform their Lives according to the Law without any thoughts that their State must be changed before their Lives can be changed from Sin to Righteousness The Heathen that knew nothing of a new State in Christ were urged by their own Consciences to practice several Duties of the Law according to the Knowledge they had by the Light of Nature Rom. 2.14 15. Israel according to the Flesh had a Zeal of God and Godliness and endeavoured to practice the written Law at least in external Performances while they were Enemies to the Faith of Christ and Paul attainted so far that he was blameless in these external Performances of the Righteousness of the Law while he persecuted the Church of Christ Phil. 3.6 Some are so near the Kingdom of God while they continue in a Natural State that they are convinced of the Spirituality of the Law that it bindeth us principally to love God with all our Heart Soul Mind and Strength and to love our Neighbour as our selves and to perform universal Obedience to God in all our inward Thoughts and Affections as well as in all our outward Actions and to do all the Duties that we owe to our Neighbour out of this hearty Love Mark 12 33 34 And they struggle and labour with great earnestness to subdue their inward Thoughts and Affections to the Law of God and to abstain not only from some Sins but from all known Sins and to perform every known Duty of the Law with their whole Heart and Soul as they think and are so active and intent in their devout Practice that they overwork their natural Strength and so servent in their Zeal that they are ready even to kill their Bodies with Fastings and other Macerations that they may kill their sinful Lusts They are strongly convinced that Holiness is absolutely necessary to Salvation and deeply affected with the Terrours of Damnation and yet they were never so much enlightened in the Mystery of the Gospel as to know that a new State in Christ is necessary to a new Life therefore they labour in vain to reform their natural State instead of getting above it in Christ And some of these when they have mispent many Years in striving against the Stream of their Lusts without any Success do at last fall miserably into Despair of ever attaining to Holiness and turn to wallowing in the mire of their Lusts or are fearfully swallowed up with horrour of Conscience There are several false Opinions whereby such ignorant Zealots encourage themselves in their fruitless Endeavours Some of them judge that they are able to practice Holiness because they are not compelled to sin and may abstain from it if they will To this they add That Christ by the Merit of his Death hath restored that Freedom of Will to good which was lost by the Fall and hath set Nature upon its Legs again and that if they endeavour to do what lieth in them Christ will do the rest by assisting them with the Supplies of his saving Grace so they trust upon the Grace of Christ to help them in their Endeavours They plead further That it would not consist with the Justice of God to punish them for Sin if they could not avoid it and that it would be in vain for the Ministers of the Gospel to preach to them and exhort them to any saving Duty if they cannot perform it They produce Examples of I leathens and of such as had the name of Christians without any acquaintance with the Faith that I have described who have attained to a great Excellency in religious Words and Works My Work at present is to deliver those ignorant Zealots from their fruitless tormenting Labours by bringing them to despair of the Attainment of Holiness in a natural State that they may seek it only in a new State by Faith in Christ where they may certainly find it without such tormenting Labour and Anxiety of Spirit For this end I shall confirm the Truth asserted in the Direction and fortifie it against the forementioned false Opinions by the ensuing Considerations First The Foundation of this Assertion is firmly laid in the Directions already explained and confirmed by many Places of Scripture For if all Endowments necessary to enable us for an holy Practice be to be had only in a State of Union and Fellowship with Christ by Faith and Faith it self not by the natural Power of Free-will but by the Power of Christ coming into the Soul by his Spirit to unite us with himself who seeeth not that the Attainment of true Holiness by any of our most vigorous Endeavours while we continue in our natural Condition is altogether hopeless I need add no more were it not to shew more sully what abundance of Light the Scripture affordeth to guide us aright in this part of our way that those that wander out of it by following any false light of their own or others corrupted Judgments may find themselves the more inexcusable Secondly It is evident that we cannot practice true Holiness while we continue in
Can any Man rationally expect strength to obey sincerely by following a Doctrine that doth not so much as promise it The true Gospel is of a more benign Nature For it promiseth that God would pour out of his spirit upon all flesh Acts 2.17 And will put his law in our mind and write them in our bearts Heb. 8.10 And will cause us to walk in his statutes that we shall keep his judgments and do them Ezeck 36.27 This word of God's Grace that requireth not Holiness of us as a Condition but promiseth it to us as a Free-gift must needs be the only Doctrine that is able to build us up and to give us an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified Acts 20.32 Seeing it pleaseth God to bring us to Holiness by believing a Doctrine we may reasonably expect that God should work upon us suitably to the nature of the Doctrine which we believe that he should give by a giving Doctrine and exact by an exacting Doctrine 4thly The way of procuring Life and Happiness by the condition of perfect or sincere Works is not a rational method for the Recovery of fallen Man though it were good for the preserving of Life before the Fall it prescribeth the immediate Practice of Holiness to recover a Man dead in Sin As if one should say to the sick of the Palsie Arise up and walk and then you shall be whole and able to walk We sometimes say jestingly to a Child that is fallen on the ground Come hither and I will help thee up but if we should say to one that is cast on his Bed by a dead Palsie we should be guilty of mocking and cruel insulting over the Afflicted Those that are humbled and made sensible of their original Sin and natural Deadness know that they must first live by the Spirit before they can act holily Gal 5.25 They will enquire How shall we have strength to perform the Duty required If you answer that they must trust in God and Christ to help them they may readily reply They have no sure Ground to trust on God or Christ for any saving Grace according to this Doctrine before they have performed this Condition at least in a sincere Resolution of Obedience and that they are as unable to bring their Hearts to such a Resolution as a dead Man is to raise himself out of the Grave Take another Instance the method of the Doctrine of Works is you must love God first and then on that Condition he will love you again whereas on the contrary we love God because he loved us first 1 Joh. 4.19 and if God suspend his Love to us upon any condition our Love to him will not be absolute but suspended upon the same condition and no way contrary to an actual hating of him 5thly The Law is so far from healing our sinful Corruption that it proveth rather an Occasion of sinful motions and actings in those that seek Salvation by the Works of it This cometh to pass by reason of the Power of our natural Corruption which is stirred up and rageth the more when the holy and just Law of God is set in opposition against it so that the fault is not in the Law but in our own hearts Those that find not this by their own Experience should believe the Apostle Paul who teacheth it plainly and that from his own Experience Rom. 7.5 to the 14. He affirmeth that there are motions of Sin by the Law in a fleshly State and that Sin taketh occasion by the Commandment Thou shalt not covet wrought in him all manner of Concupiscence deceived him flew him became exceeding sinful and that without the Law he was alive and sin dead but when the Commandment came Sin revived and he died He sheweth that the cause of this irreconcileable enmity and contrariety betwixt his sinful Nature and the Law the law is spiritual but I am carnal sold under sin Take notice here that the Reason given by the Apostle that the Doctrine of Salvation by sincere Obedience will have the same event Corrupt Nature is contrary to sincere Obedience as well as perfect and if we make it the condition of our Salvation Sin will take the same occasion by it to become exceeding sinful in its motions and actings The Success of legal Doctrine upon the natural Man is according to the Proverb Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee Prov. 9.8 Rebuking a mad Man is the way to enrage him and such is the natural Man in spiritual things since he fell out of his right Mind by the Sin of Adam We find by manifold Experience that though Men be generally addicted to the Principle of Salvation by Works yet multitudes of of them hate all strict Preachers and Professors of true Holiness because they are a Torment to their Consciences They endeavour to shelter themselves in Ignorance of the Law accounting that the less they know the less they shall answer for and therefore they would not have right things prophesied unto them Is 30.10 And they have prevailed generally in the World to darken the natural knowledge of moral Duties in such a Degree that there is a necessity of learning them by divine Revelation out of the Scriptures We may find how prone Legal-writers are to corrupt the Sense of the Law that they may leave starting holes for their Corruptions by the corrupt Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees from which Christ did vindicate it Matth. 5. And as far as I have observed none more endeavour to discover the Purity and Perfection of the Law than those that seek Holiness and Salvation without any Legal Condition by the meer Free grace of God in Christ The Doctrine of Salvation by sincere Obedience is but a mincing of the Perfection required in the Law and yet how is this Doctrine minced again and again until it be come so small that the Substance of all true Obedience is lost without any farther Practice of Holiness A willingness to be saved according to Christ's terms or a Consent that Christ should be our Lord or a Resolution to obey his Commandments which is little more than ignorant men trust on when they say that they hope God will save them because they have a good meaning tho' they live in the neglect of all Religion shall pass with many for enough sincere Obedience both to enter them into a State of Salvation and to continue them in it so that they shall never be accounted Breakers of the Gospel-covenant while so much can be pretended The most that is made necessary for Salvation shall be only to endeavour to do what we can to obey Christ's Commands tho' all that the most can do is nothing that is truly good Those that have a little more Zeal for their Salvation by Works are prone to spend it in superstitious Observances because they suit better with their carnal Nature than the spiritual Commands of God and Christ I doubt not but this
Sinai-covenant would have proved to them an occasion of no Happiness but only of sin Despair and Destruction Of it self it was only a killing Letter the ministration of death and condemnation and therefore it is now abolished 2 Cor. 3.6 8 9 11. We have cause to praise God for delivering his Church by the Blood of Christ from this Yoke of Bondage and we have cause to abhor the Device of those that would lay upon us a more grievous and terrible Yoke by turning our very New covenant into a Covenant of sincere works and leaving us no such better Covenant as the Israelites had under their Yoke to relieve us in our Extremity DIRECTION VII We are not to imagine that our hearts and lives must be changed from Sin to Holiness in any measure before we may safely venture to trust on Christ for the sure Enjoyment of himself and his Salvation .. EXPLICATION WE are naturally so prone to ground our Salvation upon our own works that if we cannot make them procuring Conditions and Causes of our Salvation by Christ yet we shall endeavour at least to make them necessary Preparatives to fit us for receiving Christ and his Salvation by Faith And Men are easily perswaded that this is not at all contrary to Salvation by Free-grace because all that is hereby ascribed to our works or good Qualifications is only that they put usin a sit posture to receive a Free gift If we were to go to a Prince for a Free gist good Manners and due Reverence would teach us to trim our selves first and to change our slovenly Clothes as Joseph did when he came out of the Dungeon into the presence of Pharaoh It seemeth to be an impudent slighting and contemning the Justice and Holiness of God and Christ and an insufferable affront and indignity offer'd to the divine Majesty when any dare presume to approach into his Presence in the nasty pickle of his Sins covered all over with putrifying Sores not at all clo'sd boundeup or cleansed much more when they endeavour to receive the most holy One into such an abominable stinking Kennel as a Sinners heart is before it be at all reformed The Parable concerning the Man that was to be bound hand and foot and cast into outer Darkness for coming to the Royal Wedding without a Wedding garment seemeth to be intended as a Warning against all such Presumption Mat. 22.11 13. Many that behold with terrour the abominable Filth of their own hearts are kept off from coming immediately to Christ by such Imaginations which Satan strongly maintaineth and increaseth in them by his Suggestions so that they can by no means be perswaded out of them until God teacheth them inwardly by the powerful Illumination of his Spirit they delay the saving act of Faith because they account that they are not yet duly prepared and qualified for it On the same Account many weak Believers delay coming to the Lord's Supper for many Years together even as long as they live in this World and would be as likely to delay their Baptism if they had not been baptized in Infancy Against all such Imaginations I shall propose the following Considerations First This Error is pernicious to the Practice of Holiness and to our whole Salvation in the same manner with that treated of in the foregoing Direction and may be confuted by the same Arguments which are there produced whether Holiness be made a procuring Condition of our Salvation through Christ or only a Condition necessary to qualifie us for the Reception of Christ we are equally brought under those Legal terms of doing first the Duties required in the Law that so we may live Therefore we are equally bereaved of the Assistance of those means of Holiness mentioned in the foregoing Directions as Union and Fellowship with Christ and the Enjoyment of all his sanctifying Endowments by Faith which should go before the Practice of Holiness that they may enable us for it and we are equally left to labour in vain for Holiness while we are in our cursed natural State whereby our sinsul Corruption will be rather exasperated than mortified so that we shall never be duly prepared for the reception of Christ as long as we live in the world Thus while we endeavour to prepare our way to Christ by holy Qualifications we do rather fill it with stumbling-blocks and deep pits whereby our Souls are hindered from ever attaining to the Salvation of Christ 2dly Any the least change of our hearts and lives from Sin to Holiness before our receiving of Christ and his Salvation by Faith is not at all necessary according to the Terms of the Gospel nor required by any one Syllable in the Word of God Christ would have the vilest Sinners come to him for Salvation immediately without delaying the time to prepare themselves for him When the wicked Jaylor enquired what he must do to be saved Paul directed him forthwith to believe on Christ with a Promise that in so doing he should be saved and straitway he and all his were baptized Acts 16.30 33. Paul doth not tell him that he must reform his heart and life first though he was in a very nasty pickle at that time having but a little before fastened Paul and Silas in the Stocks and newly attempted an horrid wilful self-murder Those three thousand Jews that were converted by Peter's Preaching and added the same day to the Church by Baptism Acts 2.41 seemed to have as much need of some considerable time to prepare themselves for receiving of Christ as others because they had but lately polluted themselves with the Murder of Christ himself v. 23. Christ commands his Servants to go out quickly into the Streets and Lanes of the City and to bring in to his Feast the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind yea to go out into the high ways and to compel them to come in without allowing them to tarry away until they had cleansed the sores and shifted off their filthy rags and swarms of lice Christ would have us to believe on him that justifieth the ungodly and therefore he doth not require us to be godly before we believe Rom. 4.5 He came as a Physician for the Sick and doth not expect that they should recover their Health in the least degree before they come to him Mat. 9.12 The vilest Sinners are fitly prepared and qualified for this Design which is to shew forth the exceeding riches of Grace pardoning our sins and saving us freely Eph. 2.5 7. For this end the Law of Moses entered that the offence might abound that so where sin abounded grace might much more abound Rom. 5.20 He loved us in our most loathsom sinful Pollution so as to die for us and much more will he love us in it so as to receive us when we come to him for the purchased Salvation He hath given full satisfaction to the Justice of God for sinners that they might have all
are as unfit for the glorious Presence as Swine for the Presence-Chamber of an Earthly Prince I confess some may be converted when they are so near the point of Death that they may have little time to practice Holiness in this World but the Grace of the Spirit is active like fire Mat. 3.11 And as soon as it is given it will immediately produce good inward Workings of Love to God and Christ and his People which will be sufficient to manifest the righteous Judgment of God in saving them at the great Day when he shall judge every Man according to his Work though some possibly may not have so much Time to discover their inward Grace in any outward good Works as the Thief upon the Cross Luke 23.40.43 The third and last thing to be noted in this Direction is that Holiness of heart and life is to be sought for earnestly by Faith as a very necessary part of our Salvation Great multitudes of ignorant People that live under the Gospel harden their hearts in sin and ruine their Souls for ever by trusting on Christ for such an imaginary Salvation as consisteth not at all in Holiness but only in Forgiveness of Sin and Deliverance from everlasting Torments They would be free from the Punishments due to Sin but they love their Lusts so well that they hate Holiness and would not be saved from the Service of Sin The way to oppose this pernicious Delusion is not to deny as some do That trusting on Christ for Salvation is a saving Act of Faith but rather to shew that none do or can trust on Christ for true Salvation except they trust on him for Holiness neither do they heartily desire true Salvation if they do not desire to be made holy and righteous in their Hearts and Lives if ever God and Christ give you Salvation Holiness will be one part of it if Christ wash you not from the filth of your Sins you have no part in him Joh. 13.8 What a strange kind of Salvation do they desire that care not for Holiness They would be saved and yet be altogether dead in Sin Aliens from the Life of God bereft of the Image of God deformed by the Image of Satan his Slaves and Vassals to their own filthy Lusts utterly unmeet for the Enjoyment of God in Glory Such a Salvation as that was never purchased by the Blood of Christ and those that seek it abuse the Grace of God in Christ and turn it into Lasciviousness They would be saved by Christ and yet out of Christ in a fleshly state whereas God doth free none from Condemnation but those that are in Christ that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit or else they would divide Christ and take a part of his Salvation and leave out the rest but Christ is not divided 1 Cor. 1.13 They would have their Sins forgiven not that they may walk with God in Love in time to come but that they may practice their Enmity against him without any Fear of Punishment but let them not be deceived God is not mocked they understand not what true Salvation is neither were they ever yet throughly sensible of their lost Estate and of the great evil of Sin and that which they trust on Christ for is but an Imagination of their own Brains and therefore their Trusting is gross Presumption True Gospel Faith maketh us to come to Christ with a thirsty Appetite that we may drink of living Water even of his sanctifying Spirit John 7.37 38. And to cry out earnestly to save us not only from Hell but from Sin saying Teach us to do thy will thy spirit is good Psal 143.10 Turn thou me and I shall be turned Jer. 31.18 Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Psal 51.10 This is the way whereby the Doctrine of Salvation by Grace doth necessitate us to Holiness of Life by constraining us to seek for it by Faith in Christ as a substantial part of that Salvation which is freely given to us through Christ DIRECT IX We must first receive the Comforts of the Gospel that we may be able to perform sincerely the Duties of the Law EXPLICATION SInce Man fell from Obedience to God which he was enabled and engaged to perform by the Comforts of his first happy state in Paradice God might have justly refused ever to give Man again any Comforts before-hand to encourage him to his Duty that the way to Holiness being hedged up against him with the Thorns and Briars of Fear Grief and Despair he might never be able to escape the Sentence of Death which was denounced against his first Transgression This Justice of God is manifest in the Method of the Legal Covenant wherein God promiseth us no Life Comfort or Happiness until we have throughly performed his Law and may be seen in the Mount Sinai Promulgation explicated Levit. 26. throughout and we are by Nature so strongly addicted to this Legal Method of Salvation that it is a hard matter to disswade those that live under the Light of the Gospel from placing the Duties of the Law before the Comforts of the Gospel if they cannot make Salvation it self yet they will be sure to make all the Comforts of it to depend upon their own Works They think it as unreasonable to expect Comfort before Duty as Wages before Work or the Fruits of the Earth before the Husband Man's Labour 2 Tim. 2.6 They account the only effectual way to secure the Obedience we owe to the Law of God is to ground all our Comforts on the Performance of it and that the contrary Doctrine strengthens the Hands of the Wicked by prophesying Peace to them where there is no Peace Ezek. 13.16 22. And openeth the Flood-gates to all Licentiousness therefore some Preachers will advise Men not to be sollicitous and hasty of getting of Comfort but that they should rather exercise themselves diligently in the Performance of their Duty and they tell them that in so doing their Condition will be safe and happy at last though they never enjoy any Comfort of their Salvation as long as they live in this World That you may rightly understand what I have asserted in the Direction against such vulgar Errors take notice That I do not make the only place of Gospel-comfort to be before the Duties of the Law I acknowledge that God comforteth his People on every side Psal 71.21 both before and after the Performance of their Duty and that the greatest Consolations do follow after Duty yet some Comforts God giveth to his People before hand as Advance-money to furnish them for his Service though most of the Pay comes in afterward Neither do I hereby speak any Peace to those that continue in their sinful natural state for the Comforts that I speak of cannot be received without rejecting those false Confidences whereby natural Men harden themselves in Sin and without that effectual working of
the Spirit whereby we are made good Trees that we may bring forth good Fruit. Though they are given before the sincere Practice of the Law yet they are not given to us in our corrupt sinful Nature but in and with the new holy Nature which immediately produceth a holy Practice though it must necessarily go before as the Cause before the Effect and they are no other than Comforts of those spiritual Benefits by which our new Estate and Nature is produced and of which it is constituted and made up as the Comforts of Redemption Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit and the like Neither do I intend here any Transport or Ravishment of Joy and Delight but only such manner of Comfort as rationally strengthens in some measure against the Oppression of Fear Grief and Despair which we are liable unto by reason of our natural Sinfulness and Misery This Explanation of the Sense of my Assertion is sufficient to answer some common Objections against it and I hope the Truth of it will be fully evidenced by the following Arguments First This Truth is a clear Consectary from those Principles of Holiness that have been already confirmed I have shewed that we must have a good Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God and of our Happiness in Heaven and of our sufficient Strength both to will and to do that which is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ that we may be rationally inclined and bent to the Practice of Holiness and that these Endowments must be had by receiving of Christ himself with his Spirit and all his Fulness by trusting on him for all his Salvation as he is freely promised to us in the Gospel and that by this Faith we do as really receive Christ as our Food by eating and drinking Now let right Reason judge can we be perswaded of the Love of God of our everlasting Happiness and our Strength to serve God and yet be without any Comforts Can the glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace be believed and Christ and his Spirit actually believed into the Heart without any Relief to the Soul from oppressing Fear Grief Despair Can the Salvation of Christ be comfortless or the Bread and Water of Life without any sweet Relish to those that feed on him with hungring and thirsting Appetites God will not give such Benefits as these to those that do not desire and esteem them above the World and certainly the very receiving of them will be comfortable to such except they receive them blindfold which they cannot do when the very giving and bestowing of them openeth the Eyes of a Sinner and turns him from Darkness to Light whereby he doth at least in some measure see and perceive Spiritually the things that concern his present and future Peace and reap some encouraging and strengthning Comfort thereby to the Practice of Holiness Secondly Peace Joy Hope are recommended to us in Scripture as the Spring of other holy Duties and Fear and oppressing Grief forbidden as Hinderances to true Religion The peace of God keepeth our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Phil. 4.7 Be ye not sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength Nehem. 8.10 Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 Fear hath torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love 1 John 4.18 This is the Reason why the Apostle doubleth his Exhortation to rejoyce in the Lord always as a Duty of exceeding weight and necessity Phil. 4.4 What are such Duties but Comfort it self and can we think that these Duties are necessary to our continuance in an holy Practice and yet not to the beginning of it where the Work is most difficult and Encouragement most needful Therefore we must make haste in the first place to get a comfortable Frame of Spirit if we would make hastâ— and not delay to keep Gods holy Commandments Thirdly The usual Method of Gospel-Doctrine as it is delivered to us in the holy Scriptures is first to comfort our Hearts and thereby to establish us in every good Word and Work 2 Thess 2.17 And it appears how clearly this method is adjusted in several Epistles written by the Apostles wherein they first acquaint the Churches with the rich Grace of God toward them in Christ and the spiritual Blessings which they are made Partakers of for their strong Consolation and then they exhort them to an holy Conversation answerable to such Priviledges and it is not only the Method of whole Epistles but of many particular Exhortations to Duty wherein the comfortable Benefits of the Grace of God in Christ are made use of as Arguments and Motives to stir up the Saints to a holy Practice which comfortable Benefits must be first believed and the Comfort of them applyed to our own Souls or else they will not be forcible to engage us to the Practice for which they are intended To give you a few Instances out of a Multitude that might be alledged we are exhorted to practice holy Duties because we are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.11 And because sin shall not have dominion over us for we are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 Because we are not in the flesh but in the spirit and God will quicken our mortal bodies by his spirit dwelling in us Rom. 8.9.11 12. Because our bodies are the members of Christ and the temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.15 19. Because God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.20 21. And hath promised that he will dwell in us and walk in us and be to us a Father and we shall be to him sons and daughters 2 Cor. 7.1 Because God hath forgiven us for Ghrist's sake and accounteth us his dear children and Christ hath loved us and given himself for us and we that were sometimes darkned are now lightened in the Lord Ephes 4.32 5.1 2 8. Because we are risen with Christ and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3.1.4 Because God hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13.5 Because of the many promises made to us 2 Cor. 7.1 Search the Scriptures and you may with delight see that is this the Vein that runneth through Gospel Exhortations and you may find the like Vein of Comfort running through the Prophetical Exhortations in the Old Testament Some may object that the Apostles used this Method in their Writings to Saints that had practised Holiness already that so they might continue and increase therein But to that I may easily reply If it be a Method needful for grown Saints much more then for Beginners that find the Work of Obedience most difficult and have most need of strong Consolation and I hope to shew how we may be able to lay hold
foregoing Directions That Faith in Christ is the Duty with which a holy Life is to begin and by which the Foundation of all other holy Duties is laid in the Soul It is before sufficiently proved That Christ himself with all Endowments necessary to enable us to an holy practice is received actually into our hearts by Faith This is the uniting Grace whereby the Spirit of God knitteth the knot of mystical Marriage betwixt Christ and us and maketh us Branches of that noble Vine Members of that Body joyned to that excellent Head living Stones of the spiritual Temple built upon the precious living Corner-stone and sure Foundation partakers of the Bread and Drink that came down from Heaven and giveth Life to the World This is the Grace whereby we pass from our corrupt natural State to a new holy State in Christ also from Death in Sin to Life in Righteousness and whereby we are comforted that so we may be established in every good Word and Work If we put the Question what must we do that we may work the works of God Christ resolveth it That we believe on him whom he hath sent Joh. 6.28 29. He putteth us first upon the work of believing which is the work of God by way of eminence the work of works because all other good works proceed from it The scope of the present Direction is to put you upon the performance of this great work of believing on Christ and to guide you therein for which end you are to consider distinctly four things contained in it 1. The first is you are to make it your diligent endeavour to perform the great work of Believing on Christ Many make little Conscience of this Duty It is not known by Natural Light as many moral Duties are but only by supernatural Revelation in the Gospel and it is foolishness to the natural Man These are sometimes terrified with apprehensions of other sins and will examine themselves concerning them and it may be will write them down to help their Memories and Devotion but the great sin of not believing on Christ is seldom thought of in their self-examinations or registred in the large Catalogues of their sins and even those who are convinced that Believing on Christ is a Duty necessary to Salvation do neglect all diligent endeavours to perform it Either because they account that it is a motion of the heart which may be easily performed at any time without any labour or diligent endeavour or on the contrary because they account it as difficult as all the works of the Law and utterly impossible for them to perform by their most diligent endeavours except the Spirit of God work it in them by its mighty power And that therefore it is in vain for them to work until they feel this working of the Spirit in their Hearts Or because they account it a Duty so peculiar to the Elect that it would be presumption for them to endeavour the performance of it until they know themselves to be elected to Eternal Life through Christ I shall urge you to a diligent performance of this Duty notwithstanding all these Impediments by the following consideration It is worthy of our best endeavours as appeareth by the preciousness excellency and necessity of it already discovered If the Light of Nature were not darkned in the matters of Salvation then it would shew us that we cannot of our selves find out the way of Salvation and would condemn those that despise that Revelation of the way of Salvation that God hath given us in the Gospel declared in all the holy Scriptures The great end of Preaching the Gospel is for the Obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 that so we may be brought to Christ and all other Obedience yea the great end of all revealed Doctrines in the whole Scriptures is to make us wise to Salvation by Faith that is in Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 3.15 The end of the Law given by Moses was for Righteousness to every one that believeth Rom. 10.4 and Christ was that end for Righteousness The moral Law it self was revealed in order to our Salvation by believing on Christ or else the knowledge of it had nothing availed fallen Man that was unable to perform it Therefore they that slight the Duty of Believing and count it foolishness do thereby slight despise and villisie the whole Counsel of God revealed in the Scripture The Law and the Gospel and Christ himself are become of none effect to the Salvation of such the only fruit that such an one can attain to of all the saving Doctrines of the Scripture is only some hypocritical moral Duties and slavish performances which will be as filthy rags in the sight of God in the great day However many mind not the sin of unbelief in their self-examinations and write it not in their Scrouls yet let them know that this is the most pernicious sin of all All the sins in their Scrouls would not prevail to their Condemnation yea they would not prevail in their Conversation were it not for their unbelief This one sin prevailing maketh it impossible for them to please God in any Duty whatsoever Heb. 11.6 If you will not mind this one main sin now God will at last mind you of it with a Vengeance For He that believeth not on the Son shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3.36 The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire taking Vengeance on those that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thes 1.5 2. Believing on Christ is a work that will require diligent endeavour and labour for the performance of it we must labour to enter into that rest lest any man fall by unbelief Heb. 4.11 we must shew diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end that we may be followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherited the promises Heb. 6.11 12. It is a work that requireth the exercise of Might and Power and therefore we have need to be strengthned with might by the Spirit in the inward Man that Christ may dwell in our hearts by Faith Eph. 3.16 17. I confess it is easie pleasant and delicious in its own nature because it is a motion of the heart without any cumbersome bodily Labour and it is a taking Christ and his Salvation as our own which is very comfortable and delightful and the Soul is carried forth in this by Love to Christ and his happiness which is an Affection which maketh even hard works easie and pleasant yet it is made difficult to us by reason of the opposition that it meeteth withall from our own inward Corruptions and from Satans temptations It is no easie matter to receive Christ as our happiness and true Salvation with true confidence and lively affection when the guilt of sin lyeth heavily upon the Conscience and the wrath of God manifested by the Word and terrible Judgments especially when we have been
us God hath promised that the wayfaring Men tho Fools shall not err in the way of Holiness and that he will teach sinners in the way the Meek will he guide in Judgment and the Meek will he teach his way Psal 25.8 9. and he commandeth them that lack Wisdom to ask it of God in Faith nothing doubting Jam. 1.5 6. But however we are to know that God guideth us only according to the rule of his Word and we must endeavour to learn the right way of Believing out of the Word or else we are not able so much as to trust rightly on God for guidance and direction in this great Work To help you herein I have given you before in this Treatise a Description of saving Faith and have shewed that it containeth two Acts in it the one is Believing the Truth of the Gospel the other is Believing on Christ as revealed and freely promised to us in the Gospel for all his Salvation Now your great endeavour must be to perform both these Acts in a right manner as I shall shew concerning each of them in particular In the first place you are highly concerned to endeavour for a right belief of the Truth of the Gospel of Christ that so you may be well furnished disposed and encouraged to Believe on Christ as revealed and promised in the Gospel hereby you are to remove all discomfortable thoughts and objections of Satan and your own Conscience and to overcome all corrupt Inclinations that hinder a chearful embracing of Christ and his Salvation It is found by experience that when any fail in the second Act of Faith the reason of the failing is commonly some defect in this first Act. There is some false imagination or other in them contrary to the belief of the Truth of the Gospel which is a strong hold of Sin and Satan that must be pulled down before they can receive Christ into their Hearts by Believing on him If they knew the Name of Christ as he is discovered in the Gospel and judged aright of the Truth and Excellency of it they would not fail to put their Trust in him And we are in great danger of entertaining such false Imaginations and to account many Truths of the Gospel strange Paradoxes yea foolish and pernicious because of our Ignorance Self-conceitedness guilty Consciences corrupt Affections and manifold Errors wherewith our Judgments are prepossessed in matters of Salvation and because Satan laboureth to beguil us as he did Eve through his subtilty to corrupt our minds from the simplicity of the Gospel that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11.3 I shall therefore give you some particular Instructions that are of greatest moment to prevent such defects as we are most lyable to in the first Act of our Faith 1. You must Believe with a full perswasion that you are a Child of Wrath by Nature as well as others fallen from God by the sin of the first Adam dead in Trespasses and Sins subject to the Curse of the Law of God and to the power of Satan and to insupportable misery to all Eternity And that you cannot possibly procure your reconciliation with God or any spiritual Life and Strength to do any good work by any endeavouring to get Salvation according to the terms of the Legal Covenant and that you cannot find any way to escape out of this sinful and miserable Condition by your own Reason and Understanding without supernatural Revelation nor be freed from it except by that infinite power that raiseth the Dead We must not be afraid as some are to know our own vileness and sinfulness neither must we be willing to think our selves better than we are but must be heartily desirous and glad to know the worst of our own Condition yea when we have found out the worst that we can of our selves Yea we must be willing to believe that our Hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked beyond all that we can know and find out Jer. 17.9 This is all necessary to work in us true Humiliation Self-despair and Self-loathing that we may highly esteem and earnestly seek the Salvation of Christ as the one thing necessary It maketh us sick of sin and sensible of our need of the great Physician and willing to be ordered according to any of his prescriptions whatsoever we suffer rather than to follow our own Wisdom Mat. 9.12 It was for want of this Humiliation that the Scribes and Pharisees were not so forward to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as the Publicans and Harlots Mat. 21.31 2. You are to believe assuredly That there is no way to be saved without receiving all the saving benesits of Christ his Spirit as well as his Merits Sanctification as well as remission of sins by Faith It is the ruin of many Souls that they trust on Christ for remission of sins without any regard to Holiness whenas these two Benefits are inseparably joyned in Christ So that none are freed from Condemnation by Christ but those that are enabled to walk holily i. e. not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8.1 It is also the ruin of Souls to seek only remission of sins by Faith in Christ and Holiness by our endeavours according to the terms of the Law whereas we can never live to God in Holiness except we be dead to the Law and live only by Christ living in us by Faith That Faith that receiveth not holiness as well as remission of sins from Christ will never sanctifie us and therefore it will never bring us to heavenly Glory Heb. 12.14 3. You are to be fully persuaded of the All-sufficiency of Christ for the Salvation of your self and of all that believe on him that his blood cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 tho our sins be never so great and horrible and continued in never so long yet he is able to deliver us from the body of Death and mortifie our Corruptions be they never so strong We find in Scripture that abominable wicked persons have bin saved by him Idolaters Adulterers Effeminate Covetous Drunkards Extortioners c. 1 Cor. 6.9 10. Such as have sinned against the Light of Nature as the Heathen and the Light of Scripture as the Jews such as have denied Christ as Peter and persecuted and blasphamed him as Paul many that have fallen into great sins are ruined for ever because they do not account the Grace of Christ sufficient for their Pardon and Sanctification when they think they are gone and past all hope of recovery that their sins are upon them and they pine away in them and how shall they live Ezek. 33.10 This despair works secretly in many Souls without much trouble and horror and maketh them careless of their Souls and true Religion The Devil sills some with horrid filthy blasphemous thoughts on purpose that they may think their sins too great to be forgiven tho commonly such thoughts are the least of the sins of those that are pestered
with them and rather the Devils sin than theirs because they are hurried into them sore against their wills but if their Hearts be somewhat polluted with them Christ testifieth that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven besides blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Mat. 10.31 And as for those that are guilty of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost the reason why they are never forgiven is not because of any want of sufficiency in the Blood of Christ or in the pardoning mercy of God but because they never repent of that sin and never seek to God for mercy through Christ but continue obstinate until Death for the Scripture testifieth that it is impossible to renew them again by Repentance Heb. 6.5 6. So that the Merits of Christ are sufficient for all that seek to him for mercy by Believing There are others that despair of ever getting any Victory over their Lusts because they have formerly made many Vows and Resolutions and have used many vigorous Endeavours against them in vain such are to persuade themselves that the Grace of Christ is sufficient for them when all other means have failed as the Woman that had the Issue of Blood and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse by any Remedies that Physicians could prescribe yet persuadeth her self that if she might but touch the Cloths of Christ she should be whole Mar. 5.25 28. Those that despair by reason of the greatness of their Guilt and Corruption do greatly dishonour and undervalue the Grace of God his infinite mercy and the infinite merits of Christ's Blood and power of his Spirit and deserve to perish with Cain and Judas Abundance of People that give up themselves to all Licentiousness in this wicked Generation lye under secret Despair which maketh them so desperate in Swearing Blaspheming Whoring Drunkenness and all manner of Wickedness How horrid and hainous soever our sins and corruptions have bin we should learn to account them a small matter in comparison to the Grace of Christ who is God as well as Man and offered himself by the Eternal Spirit as a Sacrifice of an infinite Value for our Salvation and can create anew as easily as he created the World by a word speaking 4. You are to be fully perswaded of the Truth of the General Free Promise in your own particular case that if you believe on Christ sincerely you shall have everlasting Life as well as any other in the World without performing any condition of Works to procure an Interest in Christ For the Promise is Universal Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashanted Rom. 9.32 without any Exception and if God exclude you not you must not exclude your selves but rather conclude peremptorily that how Vile Wicked and Unworthy soever you be yet if you come you shall be accepted as well as any other in the World you are to believe the great Article of the Creed the Remission of Sins in your own case when you are principally concerned or else it will little profit you to believe it in the case of others This is that which hinders many broken wounded Spirits from coming to the great Physician when they are convinced of the abominable Filthiness of their Hearts that they are dead in Sin without the least spark of true Grace and Holiness in them they think that it is in vain for such as they are to trust on Christ for Salvation and that Christ will never save such as they are why so They can be but lost Creatures at worst and Christ came to seek and save those that are lost If they that are Dead in Sin cannot be saved then all must Despair and Perish for none have any Spiritual Life until they receive it by Believing on Christ Some think themselves to be worse than any others and that none have such wicked Hearts as they and tho others be accepted yet they shall be rejected but they should know that Christ came to save the Chiefest of Sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 and that the design of God is to shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in our Salvation Eph. 2.7 which is most glorified by pardoning the greatest Sinners and it is but our ignorance to think our selves like no Body for all others as well as we are naturally Dead in Trespasses and Sins their Mind is Enmity to God and is not subject to his Law nor can be Rom. 8.8 and every Imagination of the Thoughts of their Hearts are only evil and continually so Gen. 6.5 they have all the same corrupt Fountain of all Abominations in their Hearts tho we may have exceeded many others in several actual Sins Others think that they have out-staid their time and therefore now they should find no place for Repentance tho they should seek it carefully with Tears Heb. 12. but Behold now is 〈◊〉 accepted time now the day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. ◠even as long as God calleth upon you by the Gospel And altho Esau was rejected that sought rather the Earthly than Spiritual Blessings of the Birth-right yet they shall not be rejected that seek the Enjoyment of Christ and his Salvation as their only Happiness If you come into Christ's Vinyard at the eleventh Hour of the day you shall have your Penny as well as those that come early in the Morning because the Reward is of Grace and not of Merit Matt. 20.9 10. and here you must be sure to believe stedfastly that Christ and all his Salvation is bestowed as a Free Gift upon those that do not work to procure any Right or Title to him or meetness or worthiness to receive him but only believe on him that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4.5 if you put any condition of Works or good Qualifications betwixt your selves and Christ it will be a Partition wall that you can never climb over 5. You are to believe assuredly that it is the Will of God that you should Believe in Christ and have Eternal Life by him as well as any other and that your Believing is a Duty very acceptable to God and that he will help you as well as any other in this work because he calleth and commandeth you by the Gospel to Believe in Christ This maketh us to set carefully upon the work of Believing as when Jesus commanded the blind Man to be called they said unto him Be of good comfort and rise he calleth thee Mat. 10.29 A Command of Christ made Peter to walk upon the Water Mat. 14.29 And here we are not to meddle with Gods secret of Predestination or the purpose of his Will to give the Grace of Faith to some rather than others but only with his revealed Will in his gracious Invitations and Commands by which we are required to Believe on Christ This Will of God is confirmed by his Oath As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye
promised to us in the Gospel for all his Salvation The Spirit of God doth habitually dispose and encline our Hearts to a right performance of this act by enabling us to perform the first Act according to the former instructions by believing assuredly those great things of the Gospel whereby we are delivered into a form of doctrine Rom. 6.17 which we are to obey from our hearts and to follow as our pattern in the manner of our Acting Faith in Christ for Salvation Therefore I need only to exhort you briefly to Act your Faith in Christ according to that form and pattern in which you have bin already so largely instructed You are to believe in Christ as alone sufficient and all-sufficient for your Happiness and Salvation despairing altogether of any attainment of Happiness by your own Wisdom Strength works of Righteousness or any fleshly worldly Confidences whatsoever We must be as dead People to all other Confidences and account them to be loss for Christ according to the example of the blessed Apostle Phil. 3.3 7 8. We must not be grieved that we have nothing to trust upon besides Christ for our Salvation but rather we are to rejoyce that we need nothing else and that we have a sure foundation to rely upon incomparably better than any other that can be imagined And we must resolve to cast the burden of our Souls wholly on Christ and to seek Salvation no other way whatsoever becomes of us If the Cripple lay not the whole weight of his Body upon a strong Staff but part of it on a rotten one he is like to receive a fall If the Swimmer will not commit his Body wholly to the Water to bear him up but catch at Weeds or struggle to feel out Ground he may sink to the bottom Christ will be all our Salvation or nothing if we seek to be saved by any other ways as the Galatians did by Circumcision Christ will profit us nothing Gal. 5.2 You are also to receive Christ meerly as a free-gift given to the Chief of sinners resolving that you will not perform any Conditions to procure your selves a right and title to him But that you will come to him as a lost sinner an ungodly Creature trusting on him that Justifieth the ungodly and that you will buy him without mony and without any price whatsoever Rom. 4.5 Isa 55.2 Look not on your own Faith or Love or any good Qualifications in your selves as the ground of your trusting in Christ but only to the free Grace and loving-kindness of God in Christ How excellent is thy loving-kindness O God! therefore the Children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy Wings Psal 30.7 For if you make your Faith Love or good Qualifications to be your first and principal Foundation and you build Christ upon them instead of building all upon Christ you invert the order of the Gospel and Christ will profit you nothing Another thing to be observed diligently is that you must come to Christ for a new holy Heart and Life and all things necessary thereunto as well as for deliverance from the wrath of God and the torments of Hell You must also come to him with an ardent Love and Affection to him and esteem him better than a thousand Worlds and the only excellent Portion loathing and abhorring your self as a vile sinful and miserable Creature and accounting all things Dung in comparison of his Excellency that you may be able to say from the bottom of your Heart Whom have I in Heaven but thee c. Psal 73.23 Lastly You must endeavour to draw near with full assurance of Faith Heb. 10.22 trusting on Christ confidently for your own particular Salvation upon the account of that general promise That whosoever believeth on Christ shall not be ashamed Rom. 9.33 You must check your selves for all doubtings fears staggerings concerning your own Salvation by Christ saying with the Psalmist Why art thou cast down O my Soul c. Psal 42.11 The third thing contained in the direction is The avoiding of all delay in the performance of this great work of Believing in Christ Until we have performed it we continue under the power of Sin and Satan and under the wrath of God and there is nothing betwixt Hell and us besides the Breath of our Nostrils It s dangerous for Lot to linger in Sodom lest Fire and Brimstone come down from Heaven upon him The Man-slayer must flee with all haste to the City of refuge lest the avenger of blood pursue him while his Heart is hot and slay him Deut. 19.5 6. We should make haste and not delay to keep Gods Commandments Psal 119.60 and flee for refuge to the hope set before us Heb. 6.18 And God commandeth us to flee thus by Faith without which it is impossible to please God in other Duties The work is of such a nature that it may be performed as soon as you hear the Gospel As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me Psal 18.44 As soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her Children Isa 66.8 We have many examples of those that received the Word by Faith at the first hearing of it Three Thousand were added to the Church on the very same day wherein Peter first published the Gospel in Jerusalem Acts 2.41 so many Jews and Gentiles were converted at the first hearing of the Apostle Paul at Antioch Acts 13.43 The Jaylor with all his house believed and were baptized the same Night wherein Paul first preached to them Acts 16.33 34. The Gospel came at first to the Thessalonians not in Word only but in Power and in the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 1.5 6. If God open the Hearts of his People to attend diligently they may be instructed in the knowledge of the Gospel by one brief Sermon sufficiently to begin the practice of saving Faith and when they know their Duty God requireth immediate performance without allowing us the least respit in the state of Unbelief When Satan cannot prevail with People to reject wholly the Duty of Believing his next attempt for the ruin of their Souls is to prevail with them at least to delay and shift off the performance of it from time to time by several false reasonings and imaginations which he putteth into their minds the most ignorant and sensual are easily prevailed with to defer this Duty until they have taken their fill of the pleasures profits and honours of this World and are summoned to prepare for another World by Infirmities Age Sickness praying and hoping that a large time of Repentance will be granted unto them before they dye But such delays shew that they are really unwilling to Repent and Believe until they are forced by necessity and that they prefer the pleasures prosits and honours of the World above God and Christ and their own Souls Thus they unfit themselves more and more for this great Duty by their customary walking in sin and by
any present interest in Christ and shall never attain unto Holiness or Happiness until they learn a better way of Religion 4. Think not that you can effectually encline your Heart to the immediate practice of Holiness by any such practical Principles as do only serve to bind press and urge you to the performance of holy Duties But rather let such Principles stir you up to go to Christ first by Faith that you may be effectually enclined to the immediate practice of Holiness in him by Gospel Principles that strengthen and enable you as well as oblige you thereunto There are some practical Principles that do only bind press and urge us to holy Duties by shewing the reasonableness equity and necessity of our Obedience without shewing at all how we that are by Nature dead in sin under the wrath of God may have any Strength and Ability for the performance of them As for Instance the Authority of God the Law-giver our absolute dependance on him as our Creator Preserver Governour in whose hand is our Life Breath and all our Happiness here and for ever His All-feeing Eye that searcheth our Heart discerneth our very Thoughts and secret Purposes his exact Justice in rendring to all according to their works his Almighty and Eternal Power to reward those that Obey him and to punish transgressors for ever The unspeakable Joy of Heaven and terrible Damnation of Hell Such Principles as these do bind our Consciences very strictly and do work very strongly upon the prevalent Affections of Hope and Fear to pross and urge our Hearts to the performance of holy Duties if we believe them assuredly and work them earnestly upon our Hearts by frequent serious lively Meditation And therefore some account them most forcible and effectual means to form any Vertue in the Soul and to bring it to immediate performance of any Duty tho never so difficult and that the Life of Faith consisteth principally in our living to God in Holiness by a constant Belief and Meditation on them And they account those things that serve to mind them of such Principles very effectual for Holiness as looking on the Picture of Death or on a Deaths-head keeping a Coffin by them ready made walking about among the Graves c. But this is not that manner of living to God whereof the Apostle speaketh when he saith I live yet not I but Christ that liveth in me and the Life that I live in the Flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me If a Man make use of these obliging Principles to stir him to go to Christ for Strength to Act holily he walketh like one that hath received Christ as his only Life by Faith otherwise he walketh like other Natural Men. For the Natural Man may be brought to Act by these Principles partly by Natural Light and more fully by Scripture-Light without any true knowledge of the way of Salvation by Christ and as if Christ had never come into the World And he may be strictly bound by them and vehemently urged and pressed to holy Duties and yet all this while is left to his own Natural Strength or Weakness being not assured by any of these Principles that God will give him Strength to help him in the performance of these Duties and can do nothing aright until he get new Life and Strength in Christ by a more precious saving Faith There would be no need of a new Life and Strength by Christ if these Principles were sufficient to bring us to a holy Conversation Therefore this manner of practice is no better than walking after the flesh according to our corrupt state and a seeking to be made perfect in the flesh No question but Paul was very diligent in it while he was a blind Pharisee Yea the Heathen Philosophers might attain to it in some measure by the Light of Common Reason The Devils have such Principles as they do believe assuredly yet they are never the better for them It s a part of that Natural Wisdom whereby the world knew not God not that Wisdom of God in a Mystery discovered in the Gospel which is the only sanctifying Wisdom and Power of God unto Salvation VVhat can you produce but corruption by pressing with Motives to Holiness one that hath no soundness in him from the sole of the foot even to the head only wounds and bruises and putrified sores He that is made truly sensible of his own vileness and deadness by Nature will despair of ever bringing himself to Holiness by Principles that afford him no Life and Strength but only lay an Obligation upon him and urge and press him to Duty What are meer Obligations to one that is dead in sin While the Soul is without spiritual Life sin is the more moved and enraged by pressing and urging upon the Soul the Obligations of the Law and its Commands The motions of sin are by the Law and sin taking occasion by the Commandment worketh in us all manner of Concupiscence Rom. 7.5 7 8. And yet these obliging Principles are very good and excellent in this right Gospel use of them as the Apostle saith of the Law that it is good if it be used lawfully 1 Tim. 1.7 The humbled sinner knoweth well his Obligations but it is Life and Strength that he wanteth and despaireth of walking according to such Obligations until he get this Life and Strength by Faith in Christ Therefore these obliging Principles do move him to go in the first place to Christ that so he may be enabled to answer their End by the strengthning and enlivening Principles of Gods Grace in Christ Some there are that make use of Gospel-Principles only to oblige and urge to Duty without affording any Life and Strength for the performance as they that think that Christ dyed and rose again to establish a New Covenant of Works for our Salvation and to give us a pattern of Good Works by his own Obedience rather than to purchase Life Obedience and good Works for us Such as these do not understand and receive the Principles of the Gospel rightly but they pervert and abuse them contrary to their true Nature and Design and thereby they render them as ineffectual for their Sanctification as any other natural or legal Principles 5. Stir up and strengthen your self to perform the Duties of Holiness by a firm perswasion of your enjoyment of Jesus Christ and all spiritual and everlasting Benefits through him Set not your selves upon the performance of the Law with any prevailing thoughts or apprehensions that you are yet without an Interest in Christ and the love of God through him under the Curse of the Law the power of Sin and Satan having no better Portion than this present World no better strength than that which is in the purposes and resolutions of your own Free-will While such thoughts as these prevail and influence your Actings its evident that you
necessary to the very being there of because Faith cometh by hearing the Word of God and receiveth Christ as manifested by the Word as I have before proved Raab the Canaanite was justifyed by Faith before she had any visible Commuion with the Church in any of God's Ordinances yet not without the Word of God even the same Word for Substance which was written in the Scriptures and was then extant in the Books of Moses Though that Word was not brought to her by any Book of Holy Scripture nor by the Preaching of any Holy Minister but by the Report of the Heathens Josh 2.9 11. But here our great work must be to get such a Knowledge of the Word as is necessary and sufficient to guide us in receiving of Christ and walking in him by Faith You must not be of their Minds that think the Knowledge of the Ten Commandments to be sufficient to Salvation or that would have Mysteries to remain hidden from the Understanding of the Vulgar and nothing to be Preached to them but that they can readily assent to and receive by the Light that is in all Men of which Mind it may be some Ministers are who unwitingly agree with the Quakers in a Fundamental of their Heresie But you must endeavour chiefly to know the Mystery of the Father and the Son as it is discovered in the Gospel Wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. 2.2 3. Which to know is life eternal and the ignorance of it is death eternal Joh. 17.3 2 Cor. 4.3 You must know that Christ is the end of the law Rom. 10.4 and therefore you must endeavour to know the Commands of the Law not that you may be enabled by that Knowledge to practife them immediately and so to procure Salvation by your Works but rather by your Knowledge of them you may be made sensible of your Inablility to perform them and of the Enmity that is in your Heart against them and the Wrath that you are under for breaking of them and the Impossibility of being saved by your own Works that so you may flee to Christ for Refuge and trust only to the Free Grace of God for Justification and Strength to fulfill the Law acceptably through Christ in your Conversation And for this end you must endeavour to learn the utmost Strictness of the Commands the exact Perfection and spiritual Purity which they require that you may be the more convinced of Sin and stired up to seek unto Christ for Remission of Sin for Purity of Heart and spiritual Obedience and be brought nearer to the Enjoyment of him As Christ testified that the Scribel who understood the greatness of that Command of Loving the Lord with all the Heart and Soul was not far from the Kingdom of God Mar. 12.34 the most effectual Knowledge for your Salvation is to understand these Two Points The desperate Sinfulness and Misery of your own natural Condition and the alone Sufficiency of the Grace of God in Christ for your Salvation that you may be abased as to the Flesh and exalted in Christ alone And for the better understanding of these Two main Points you should learn how the first Adam was the figure of the second Rom. 5.14 How Sin and Death came upon all the natural Seed of the first Adam by his Disobedience in eating the forbidden Fruit and how Righteousness and Everlasting Life come upon all the spiritual Seed of the second Adam Jesus Christ by his Obedience unto Death even the death of the Cross You also should learn the true difference betwixt the Two Covenants the Old and the New or the Law and the Gospel that the former shutteth us up under the Guilt and Power of Sin and the Wrath of God and his Curse by its rigorons Terms Do all the Commandments and live and cursed are you if you do them not and fail in the least Point The latter openeth the gates of righteousness and life to all Believers i. e. the New Covenant by its gracious Terms Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and live i. e. All your Sins shall be forgiven and Holiness and Glory shall be given to you freely by his Merit and Spirit Furthermore you should learn the Gospel Principles that you are to walk by for the attainment of Holiness in Christ And here I shall mind you particularly that you would be a good Proficient in Christian Learning if you get a good Understanding of the 6th and 7th Chapters of the Apostle Paul to the Romans where the powerful Principles of Sanctification are purposely treated of and differenced from those weak and ineffectual Principles which we are most naturally prone to walk by I need not particularly commend any other Points of Religion to your Learning for if you get the Knowledge of these principal Points which I have mentioned and improve it to a right end which is to Live and Walk by Faith in Christ your own renewed Mind will covet the Knowledge of all other things that appertain to Life and Godliness And if in any thing you be otherwise minded than is according to saving Truth God shall reveal even this unto you Phil. 3.15 Yet let me caution you lest instead of gaining Christ by your Knowledge you rather lose him by putting your Knowledge in the place of Christ and trusting on it for your Salvation One cause of the Jews perishing was that they rested in a form of knowledge and of the truth in the law Rom. 2.20 and doubtless all that many Christians will gain by their Knowledge in the end will only be to be beaten with more Stripes because they place their Religion and Salvation chiefly in the Knowledge of their Lords Will and in their Ability to Talk and Dispute of it though it may be for the most part at the Tavern or Ale-Bench without preparing themselves to do according thereunto Luk. 12.47 much less are you to place your Religion and hope of Salvation in a daily Task of reading Chapters or repeating Sermons without understanding more than the Papists do their Lessons in the Latin Mass and Canonical Hours as sad Experience sheweth that many seemingly Devout and frequent Hearers of the Word do notwithstanding remain in lamentable and wonderful Ignorance of the saving Truth and in them is fulfilled the Prophecy of Isaias That in hearing they shall hear and not understand and in seeing they shall see c. Mat. 13.14 15. 2. Another means to be used diligently for the promoting of the Life of Faith is Examination of our State and Ways according to the Word whether we be at present in a State of Sin and Wrath or of Grace and Salvation that if we be in a State of Sin we may know our Sickness and come to the great Physician while it is called to day And if we be in a State of Grace ws may know that we are of the truth and assure our hearts before God with the greater confidence by