fallibility of the means of knowledge and these do not destroy but consist with a state of Grace and Salvation They get not into mens understandings by means of an evil and disobedient heart For it is not any love which they have for the damning sins of pride ambition sensuality covetousness unpeaceableness faction or the like which makes them willing to believe those Opinions true that are in favour of them When they take up their prejudice they do not see so far as these ill effects nor discern how any of these sins is served by it and therefore they cannot be thought to admit it with this design to serve them in it Nay further what is the best sign of all that lust or disobedience which the prejudice happens to minister to in some instance is mortified and subdued in them and so cannot have any such influence upon them For sometimes those very men who in such instances as their prejudice avows it are irreverent and disrespectful pragmatical and disobedient to their Governours or the like in all other cases wherein their Opinion is unconcerned are most respectfull quiet and obedient Humility and modesty peaceableness and quietness submission and obedience are both their temper and their practice For they love and approve and in the ordinary course and constant tenour of their lives conscientiously observe them and nothing under such prejudicate Opinion as makes them believe them to be unlawfull in some cases could over-rule that love and obedience which they have for them and prevail upon them so far as to act against them So that with these men it is not the disobedient temper of their hearts which makes their conscience err but the errour and prejudice of their conscience which makes their practice disobedient In such men therefore as are thus qualified who do not see those sins which their prejudice ministers to when they admit it and in all the other actions of their lives except where by this prejudice they are over-ruled shew plainly that they have mortified and overcome it 't is clear that the prejudice did not get into their consciences by any influence of an evil and disobedient heart But that which made way for it was only their natural weakness of understanding or the fallibility of the means of knowledge They are not of an understanding sufficient to examine things exactly when they embrace their prejudice for their Reason then is dim and short-sighted weak and unexperienced unable throughly to search into the natures of things and to judge of the various weight and just force of reasons to sift and ransack separate and distinguish between solidity and show truth and falsehood But those arguments whereupon they believe and upon the credit whereof they take up Opinions are education and converse the instruction of spiritual guides the short reasonings of their neighbours and acquaintance or the authority of such books or persons as they are ordered to read and directed to submit to These are the motives to their belief and the arguments whereupon they are induced to think one Opinion right and another wrong and the only means which they have of discerning between truth and falsehood But now all these means are in no wise certain they are an argument of belief indeed and the best that such men have but yet they are far from being infallibly conclusive Sometimes they lead men right but at other times they lead them wrong for they are not at all determined one way but in several men and at several times according as it happens they minister both to truth and falsehood In matters that are primarily of belief and speculation in Religion they lead a hundred men to errour where they lead one to Truth For there are an hundred Religions in the world whereof one alone is true and every one has this to plead in its own behalf that it is the Religion of the Place and Party where it is believed The Professors of it are drawn to assent to it upon these Arguments viz. because they have been Bred up to it by the care of their Parents and Teachers and confirmed in it by long Vse and Converse It was Education and Custome the Authority of their Spiritual Guides and the common Perswasion of their Countrey which made them both at first to believe and still to adhere to it And every one in these points having these Arguments to plead for his own belief against the belief of every other man who differs from him since of all these different Beliefs one alone is true these Arguments must be allow'd indeed to minister to Truth in that but in all the rest to serve the Interest of Falsehood In matters of Duty and Practice 't is true there is infinitely more accord and good agreement For almost all the laws of nature w ch make up by far the greatest part of every Christians Duty are the Catholick Religion of all sober Sects and Parties in the world So that these Arguments of Custome and Education are tolerably good and right guides to mens Consciences how ill soever they are to their speculative Opinions because although they carry them into a wrong belief yet will they lead them into a righteous practice But although in these practical Notions and Opinions they are commonly a right yet sometimes and to several persons they prove a wrong instrument For even in matters of Duty and Practice men are no more secure from errour than they are from disobedience nor more certain that they shall have no mistakes about them than that they shall not go beyond them They have and till they come to Heaven ever will have erroneous Opinions as well as practices so that these motives Education and Custome and Authority will never be wanting in the world to instill into weak and undiscerning minds such Opinions as will in some instances and degrees evacuate and undermine some duties And since there will never be wanting in the world such fallible Arguments and means of knowing nor such weak and unexperienced understandings as must of necessity make use of them 't is plain that several disobedient prejudices will in all times get into mens minds not through any wickedness or disobedience of their hearts but only through the natural weakness of their minds and the fallibility of the means of knowledge And when any prejudices which lead to disobedience enter this way they do not put us out of Gods favour or destroy a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it For in our whole action of disobedience upon them there is nothing that should provoke Gods wrath and punitive displeasure against us He will not be at enmity with us either for acting according to our erroneous Conscience or if the errour was thus innocent for having an erroneous conscience for our rule of action He will not be offended at us I say for acting according to our erroneous conscience for whether our conscience be true or
For every Man at the last day will be declared a Child of wrath who is a son of disobedience and he shall most certainly be Damned who dyes without amendment and Repentance in works which are wilfully and deliberately sinful Christs Gospel has already judged this long before-hand and at that day he will confirm it When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels i. e. when he shall come with his Royal attendance to judge the world He will take vengeance says S t Paul on all them that OBEY not his Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess. 1.7 8 9. When he comes in state with the ten thousands of his Saints it will be to execute Judgment upon all that are ungodly for all the ungodly DEEDS which they have committed Jude 14 15. And when our Lord himself gives a relation of his proceedings at that day he tells us that whosoever they be or whatsoever they may pretend if their works have been disobedient they shall hear no sentence from him but what consigns them to Eternal Punishment I will profess thus unto them says he I never knew you Depart from me ye that WORK iniquity Matt. 7.23 This will be the method of Christs Judgment and these the measures of his Sentence he will pronounce Mercy and Life upon all that are obedient but Death and Hell to all that disobey And indeed it were hight of folly and madness to expect he should do otherwise and to fancy that when he comes to judge us as S t Paul says according to the Laws of his Gospel he should absolve and reward us when in our works and actions we have transgressed them For this were to thwart his own rule and to go cross to his own measures it were to encourage those whom his laws threaten to acquit such as they condemn and in one word not to judge according to them as he has expresly declared he will but against them If we would know then what condition we shall be adjudged to in the next world we must examine what our obedience has been in this We can have no assurance of a favourable Sentence in that Court but only the doing of our duty Our last doom shall turn not upon our knowing or not knowing our willing or not willing but upon our obeying or disobeying It is in vain to cast about for other marks and to seek after other evidences nothing less than this performance of our duty can avail us unto life and by the merits of Christ and the grace of his Gospel it shall And thus we see in the general what those terms and that condition are which to mete out our last doom of Bliss or Misery the Gospel indispensably exacts of us It is nothing less than a working service and obedience the enquiry to be made at that day being only this whether we have done what was commanded us If we have performed what was required of us we shall be pronounced Righteous and sentenced to Eternal Life but if we have wilfully transgressed and wrought wickedness without amendment and repentance we shall then be declared incorrigible Sinners and adjudged to Everlasting Death This indeed is a very great truth but yet such as very few are willing to see and to consider of For obedience is a very laborious service and a painful task and they are not many in number who will be content to undergo it And if a man may have no just hopes upon any thing less than it the case of most dying men is desperate But as men will live and dye in sin so will they live and dye in hopes too And therefore they catch at softer terms and build upon an easier condition And because the Gospel promises Salvation and a happy sentence to faith love repentance our being in Christ our knowing Christ and other things besides obedience they conclude that they shall be acquitted at that Bar upon the account of any or all of these though they do not obey with them They make Faith Love Repentance and the rest to be something separate from obedience something which will save them when that is wanting So that if they be in Christ if they know and believe with the mind and love and repent in their hearts their hope is to be absolved at the last day be their lives and actions never so disobedient But this is a most dangerous and damning errour For it makes men secure from danger till they are past all possibility of recovering out of it and causes them to trust to a false support so long till it lets them drop into Hell and sink down in damnation And although it be sufficiently evident from what has been already said that our obedience is that only thing which will be admitted as a just plea and as a qualification able to save us in that Court yet because I would fully subvert all these false grounds whereupon men support their pernicious hopes and sinful lives together I will go on to prove it still further And this will be most plainly effected by shewing that all those other terms and conditions whereto the Gospel sometimes promises pardon and happiness concenter all in this and save us no otherwise than by being springs and principles of our obedience They are not opposed to our doing of our duty and keeping the Commandments but imply it For when pardon is promised to Faith to Love to Repentance or any thing else it is never promised to them as separate from obedience but as containing it Obedience is that still for which a man is saved and pardoned it is not excluded from them but expressed by them In order to a clearer apprehension of the truth of this I think fit to observe that there is an ordinary figure and form of speech very usual both with God and men which the Rhetoricians call a Metonymie or Transnomination and that is a transferring of a word which is the particular Name of one thing to express an other The use of it is this that in things which have a near relation and dependance upon each other as particularly the cause and its effect have the particular name of either may many times signifie both so that when the name only of one is expressed yet really both are meant and intended And then by that word which in its proper sence stands only for the effect we are to understand not it alone but together with it the cause also that produced it and by that which properly signifies the cause we are to mean not the bare cause alone but besides it the effect which flows from it likewise As for the latter of these the bare naming of the cause when we intend together with it to express its natural consequent and effect too because it is that which chiefly concerns our present business I will set down some instances of it which daily
occur in common speech If we advise a man to trust his Physician or his Lawyer our meaning is not barely that he should give credit to them but together with that that he shew the effect of such credit in following and observing them If we are earnest with any man to hearken to some advice that is given him we intend not by hearkning to express barely his giving ear to it but besides that his suffering the effects of such attention in practising and obeying it And thus we commonly say that we have got a Cold when we mean a Disease upon cold or a Surfeit when we understand a sickness upon Surfeiting In these and many other instances which might be mentioned we daily find that in the speech and usage of men the cause alone is oft times named when the effect is withal intended and accordingly understood to be expressed and that both are meant when barely one is spoken The effect doth so hang upon its cause and so naturally and evidently follow after it that we look upon it as a needless thing to express its coming after when once we have named its cause which goes before but we ordinarily judge it to be sufficiently mentioned when we have expressed that cause which as is evident to us all produces and infers it And as it is thus in the speech of men so is it in the language of God too He talks to us in our own way and uses such forms of speech and figurative expressions as are in common use among our selves And to seek no further for instances of this than these that lye before us he expresses our works and obedience by our knowledge our repentance our love and such other causes and principles as effect and produce it For we must take notice of this also that our outward works and actions depend upon a train of powers within us which as springs and causes of them order and effect them For our passions excite to them our understandings consider of them and direct them our wills command and choose them and then afterwards in pursuance of all these our bodily powers execute and exert them The actions of a man flow from all the ingredients of the humane nature each principle contributes its share and bears a part towards it For from the constitution of our natural frame our actions are placed wholly in the power of our own wills and our wills are set in a middle station to be moved by our appetites and passions and guided and directed by our minds or intellects We do and perform nothing but what we will neither do we will any thing but what we know and desire what our reason and passion inclines and directs to And because these three inward faculties our minds and wills and passions give being and beginning to our outward works and practice therefore are they by the Masters of moral Philosophy and Divinity ordinarily called the Causes and Principles of Humane Actions But these three principles of humane actions in genecal lye not more open to produce good than evil They are all under the unrestrain'd power of our own free will it is that which determines them either for God or against him but in themselves they are indifferently fitted and serve equally to bring forth acts of Obedience or of disobedience and sin To make these principles therefore of works or actions in general to become principles of good works and obedience there are other nearer tempers and qualifications required which may determine them that in themselves are free to both to effect one and be Authours of such actions only whereby we serve and obey God And this is done by the nearer and more immediate efficiency of Faith Repentance Love and the like For he who knows Gods Laws and believes his Gospel with his understanding who in his heart loves God and hates Sin whose will is utterly resolved for good and against evil he it is whose faculties in themselves indifferent are thus determinately disposed who is ready and prepared to perform his duty His Faith directs him to those Laws which he is to obey and to all the powerful motives to Obedience it shews him how it is bound upon him by all the Joys of Heaven and by all the Pains of Hell and this quickens his passions and confirms all good resolutions and makes him in his will and heart to purpose and desire it And when both his mind his will and passions which were before indifferent are thus gained over and determinately fixed for it in the efficiency of inward principles there is no more to be done but he is in the ready way to work and perform it in outward operation So that as our minds wills and passions are principles of humane actions in general whether good or evil these nearer dispositions our Faith Repentance c. are principles particularly of good works and obedience And since our obedient actions proceed in this manner from the power and efficiency of these principles God according to our own way of expressing things is wont many times only to name them when he intends withal to express our obedience it self which results from them Although he barely mention one yet he understands both and in speaking of the cause he would be taken to imply the effect likewise Thus when he promises Pardon and Salvation to our knowledge and belief of his Gospel to our Repentance from our Sins to our Love and Fear of God which with several others are those preparatory dispositions that fix and determine our minds wills and passions indifferent in themselves to effect Obedient actions he doth not in any wise intend that these shall Save us and procure Pardon for us without Obedience but only by signifying and implying it Wheresoever Mercy and Salvation at the last day are promised and this condition of our working and obeying is not mentioned it is always meant and understood That which such mercy was promised to is either the cause of our Obedience or the effect and sign of it the speech is metonymical and more was meant by it than was expressed Though the word was not named yet the thing was intended for obedience is ever requisite to pardon and nothing has Mercy promised to it in the last Judgment but what some way or other is a sign of it or produces and effects it This I might well take for granted upon the strength of that proof which has been already urged for our Obedience being the sole condition of our being acquitted at that day But because the interest of souls is so much concerned in it I will be yet more particular and proceed to show further that this sence and explication of all such places is the very same that God himself has expressly put upon them For concerning all those things whereto he has promised a favourable sentence at the last Judgment he assures us that they are of no account with him nor will be owned
are on both sides the Law against unconcernedness in each others condition against not bearing each others infirmities against provoking one another against estrangedness against strife or contention against hatred and enmity against publishing each others infirmities against not praying for each other against adultery against jealousie On the Husbands towards the Wife the Law against not maintaining her against not protecting her against imperiousness against uncompliance or uncondescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law against dishonour against irreverence against unobservance against disobedience against casting off his yoke or unsubjection The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Parents and Children with all its Instances which are on both sides the Law against want of natural affection against not praying for each other and imprecation On the Parents side the Law against not providing for those of their own house against irreligious and evil education against harsh Government or provoking their Children to anger On the Childrens the Law against dishonour against irreverence against being ashamed of their Parents against mocking them against cursing or reproach and speaking evil of them against disobedience against contumaciousness against robbing them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with its effects which are the Law against want of natural affection against not providing for our Brethren against not praying for them against imprecation or praying against them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Master and Servant with all its expressions which are on the Masters side the Law against not providing maintenance for his Servant against not catechizing or instructing him against unequal Government against unjustness wantonness and rigour in commanding against imperiousness against immoderate threatning against railing at him against defrauding or keeping back the wages of the Hireling against not praying for him against imprecation And on the Servants the Law against dishonour of his Master against irreverence against non-observance against publishing or aggravating his Masters faults against not vindicating his injured reputation against unfaithfulness against wasting his Goods against purloining against disobedience against answering again against slothfulness against eye-service against contumacy and resistance against not praying for him against imprecation or praying against him To all which we must adde the two positive and arbitrary prohibitions of the Gospel the Law against neglecting Baptism and the Lords Supper And when we wilfully transgress any one or more of the Commands foregoing a perseverance in it without amending it which is impenitence And these are those particular prohibitions whereto our obedience is indispensably required by the Gospel and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged And for the performance of all these Commands and keeping back from all these prohibitions when it is become any mans habitual course and practice it is oft-times expressed by the general word holiness as the contrary is by unholiness CHAP. V. Of the Sanction of the foregoing Laws The CONTENTS Of the Sanction of all the forementioned particular Laws That they are bound upon us by our hopes of Heaven and our fears of Hell Of the Sanction of all the particular affirmative or commanding Laws NOW it is upon our obedience of all those Laws which are mentioned in the foregoing Chapters that all our well-grounded hope of pardon and a happy Sentence at the last Day depends They are that Rule which God has fixt for the Proceedings at that Judgment whereby all of us will be doomed to live or dye eternally There is not any one of them left naked and unguarded for men to transgress at pleasure and yet to go unpunished but the performance of every one is made necessary unto life and the unrepented transgression of it threatned with eternal damnation And that it is so is plain from this because almost the whole Body of them viz. all those which are implyed in piety towards God and in Justice Charity and peaceableness towards men are nothing else but instances and effects of Love which is plainly necessary and that in the greatest latitude For the words of the Command are as comprehensive as can be That thou mayest inherit eternal life thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind which plainly take in our whole affection towards God and every part and expression of it and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self which again implies all instances of love towards other men seeing towards our own selves not any one is wanting This do and thou shalt live Luke 10.25 27 28. So that in shewing of them all that they are natural effects of an universal love I have shewn withal that they are necessary means of life and conditions of salvation This is a plain mark whereby it is obvious and easie for us all to understand what Laws are necessary terms of life For every mans heart can inform him what are the natural effects of love they being such things as the meanest reason may discern nay such as every mans affection will suggest to him And because they are so the Apostles themselves when they set down Catalogues of indispensable Laws never descend to reckon up all particulars but having plainly declared the absolute necessity of an ample and universal love in the general they content themselves with naming some few instances of it and leave the rest which are like unto them to be suggested to us by our own minds And the same course they take in recounting those sins which are opposite to them and which without repentance will certainly destroy us Thus for instance in S t Paul's Catalogue of damning sins Gal. 5. he doth not trouble himself to name all particulars but having mentioned several of them he concludes with this general intimation of the rest and such like vers 21. This way then of shewing the necessity of all the forementioned Laws by shewing expresly that Love in the general is plainly necessary and leaving it to mens own minds to collect of them all severally that they are natural effects of it is sufficient in it self and such as the Apostles of our Lord are wont to take up with But because our belief of the necessity of our obedience in all the preceding particulars is of so great moment and it is so infinitely our concern to be fixt and settled in it I will here set down such express declarations of it in every one of them as are to be met with in the Scriptures And to begin with the several Classes of them in the same order wherein they are laid down for sobriety and all the particular Laws comprehended under it we have their sanction set down and the necessity of our obedience to them to our life and pardon expressed in the following Scriptures For the Law of humility and lowliness of mind take these Put on as necessary qualifications
our disobedient conscience and corrupt perswasion It is not only the errour of our conscience which makes us serve the sin for we serve it equally in other instances where that is wholly unconcerned The Sin is unmortified and imperious it carries us on to transgress where it is further'd by the errour of our consciences and where it wants it But it is the wickedness of our hearts which makes us to be wicked in our judgments and to espouse such Opinions as encourage and defend it For when any lust is so strong in us as to rule our practice it will be sure to lay a corrupt byass upon our wills so that we shall be apt still to judge in favour of it and be very partial in all those Opinions wherein it has any interest And therefore several disobedient prejudices will be taken up to serve a turn and we shall work our selves up into a belief of them for the sins sake which is justified and protected by them Is any man therefore of a temper and conversation that is fierce and contentious busie and restless forward to give Laws and impatient to submit to them 'T is no wonder if he takes up Opinions that justifie contempt of Governours that avow Alteration and Disturbance and countenance Faction Sedition and a Civil War For the ungovernableness of his Conscience is but agreeable to the ungovernableness of his Practice the Sin reign'd first in his heart and life and was from thence with ease instill'd into his Opinion and Perswasion Is any man habitually inclined to Pride and Ambition Wrath and Malice Revenge and Cruelty is he greedy of Gain and a slave to sensual Delights and bodily Pleasures He is prepared for any of those Vile Opinions which overturn all Laws to promote Christs Temporal Power on Earth or to advance the secular greatness of his pretended Vicar and Holy Church and for any others of like nature For the unmortified lusts are a Law to him in his life before they come to govern in his conscience he is first wicked and rebellious in his heart and that makes him to admit of such wicked Opinions into his understanding In these men then the case is plain it is clearly seen how they came by their disobedient prejudices for their lives and conversations show that abundantly Disobedience reign'd first in their hearts and thence got into their consciences and perswasions Secondly If the disobedience and the prejudice lay so near and were so close conjoyn'd that a man could not but see one when he saw the other it is still imputable to his wicked lusts and vices For he discerned how obedience was impair'd and how the Sin was served by it when he first gave credit to it and therefore he was plainly acted by a want of virtue and an evil heart For if he had been touched with any love of virtue he could not have allowed of that which he knew would evacuate and undermine it but he would have shewn much more forwardness to reject the Opinion for the sake of the sin than to embrace it upon any appearances of argument and reason So that his prejudice enter'd through an aversation to that instance of obedience which it undermined and it was his love to the wicked lust which was advanced by it that made way for it He willingly and designedly served the sin and he saw how much the Opinion contributed to it and therefore he readily embraced it Nay further Thirdly If the sinfull consequences were not discerned when a man at first embraced it yet if they are such as are of a plain unquestionable guilt and greatly sinfull and when he is shewed afterwards how they follow from it he still stands by it and adheres to it however the prejudicate Opinion might enter at the first yet it holds possession by a heart that is wicked and disobedient Some sins there are whose guilt is not altogether so clear and indisputable but that an innocent and honest although a weak and erring mind may sometimes question and overlook it And thus many truly religious souls do not think that their refusing to observe the commands of men about the ceremonies of divine worship is disobedience or that their over-acting in the cause of God and Religion is pragmaticalness For these sins among several others although they are plain and obvious to an unprejudiced and piercing understanding which is able to discern the grounds and reasons of things and fairly to consider of them Yet to such minds as have fallen unhappily under some mistaken notions and false prepossessions they are not evident whence many men that have honest and obedient hearts do yet err and judge amiss concerning them But then several other sins are so open and notorious that no sober mind and virtuous inclination can ever have any doubts about them Thus for instance no honest man who is willing fairly and seriously to consider things can ever question I think that killing without Commission from Authority and due process of Law is Murther that spoils without judicial course are robbery that appearing in Arms against the supreme Sovereign Power or men commissioned by him is Rebellion that intoxicating use of Wine is Drunkenness and a promiscuous use of Women Adultery or Fornication These sins and many others are of so open and notorious a nature that no man of an ordinary wit if he has any competent degrees of honesty can ever apprehend them to be other than damnably sinful And if any man has any opinions which in any cases justifie some of these if he continues to hold them still after he sees how these sins follow from them which he must needs do when he practises and incurrs them because the opinions lead him on to them 't is plain that his opinion holds possession of his mind because his heart is wicked simplicity and ignorance it may be gave it entrance but sin and disobedience enable it to persevere If the man indeed was only simple and short-sighted rash and forward at the first and either had not understanding or patience enough to look on so far as the sinful consequences when he gave it entrance his lusts and vices at that time could have no share in it because he did not see how they could be served by it and so far the simplicity of a well-mâ—aning mind and the obedient temper of an honest heart and a good intention may plead his excuse for his otherwise wicked and disobedient perswasion But if afterwards he persists in it when he sees all the iniquity and disobedience that flows from it and goes on to cancel and transgress notorious and weighty Laws upon the assurance of it 't is manifest then that his heart is wicked and that he is influenced more by a reigning sin than by a cogent reason For if his heart were acted by a full resolution of obedience and a love of Vertue he would quickly renounce such opinions when once he saw such
of both these so that unto it there is required First An honest heart Secondly An honest industry First In all involuntary ignorance it is necessary that we have an honest heart We have S t Paul's word for it that our receiving of the love of the truth is necessary to a saving belief and understanding of it They who believed not the truth but believed lyes fell into that miscarriage by this means says he because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved 2 Thess. 2.10 11 12. And our Saviour has taught us that an obedient heart is the surest step to a right understanding If any man will or is willing to do God's will he shall know of the Doctrine which I preach whether it be of God John 7.17 The heart or will must in the first place be obedient and unfeignedly desirous to know Gods will not that it may question and dispute but practise and obey it For a failure here spoils all besides because the Heart and Will is the Principle of all our actions and if it be against obeying any Law it will be also against understanding it and so will be sure to make us neglect and omit more or less the means of coming to the knowledge of it To prevent therefore all wilful defects afterwards care must be taken in the first place that our hearts be honest and truly desirous to be shewn our Duty be it what it will They must entertain no Lusts which will prejudice them against Gods Laws and make them willing either to overlook or to pervert them But they must come with an entire obedience and resignation being ready and desirous to hearken to whatsoever God shall say and resolv'd to practise it whensoever they shall understand it Of their sincerity in which last besides their own sense and feeling they cannot have a greater Argument than their being careful to be found in the practice of so much as they know already without which it is not to be expected that they should be perfecter in their practice by knowing more This Honesty and obedience of the Heart then is necessary in the first place to make our ignorance involuntary because we should wilfully omit the means of knowledge and become thereby wilfully ignorant if we wanted it But then as an effect of this Honesty of the heart to make our ignorance involuntary and innocent there is yet further required Secondly An honest Industry For the knowledge of our Duty as was observed is not to be got without our own search but we must inquire after it and make use of the means of obtaining it before we shall be possessed of it We must read good Books which will teach us Gods Will but especially the Bible we must be constant and careful to hear Sermons attend diligently to the instructions of our spiritual Guides whom God has set over us for that very purpose We must submit our selves to be catechised by our Governours taught by our Superiours and admonished by our Equals begging always a Blessing from God to set home upon our Souls all their instructions And after all we must be careful without prejudice or partiality to think and meditate upon those things which we read or hear that we may the better understand them and that they may not suddenly slip from us but we may remember and retain them All these are such means as God has appointed for the attainment of spiritual knowledge and laid in our way to a right understanding of his Will And they are such as he has placed in every mans power for any of us to use who are so minded So that if we are ignorant of our Duty through the want of them we are ignorant because we our selves would have it so But if ever we expect that our ignorance should be judged involuntary we must industriously use all those means of knowledge which are under the power of our own wills whereby we may prevent it And as for the measures of this industry viz. what time is to be laid out upon it and what pains are to be taken in it that is so much as in every one according to their several abilities and opportunities would be interpreted an effect of an honestly obedient heart and of an unfeigned desire to know our duty by any honest man For God has not given all men either the same abilities or opportunities for knowledge and since he has not he doth not expect the same measures from them He doth not reap where he has not sown but that which he exacts is that every man according to his opportunities should use and improve that talent be it more or less which was intrusted with him as we are taught in the Parable of the Talents Mat. 25. And to name that once for all we have this laid down by our Saviour as an universal maxime of Gods Government unto whomsoever much is given of them shall much be required Which is the very same equitable proceeding that is daily in use among our selves For to whom men have committed much of him they will exact the more Luk. 12.48 If any man therefore is industrious after the knowledge of Gods will according to the measure of those abilities and opportunities which God has given him he is industrious according to that measure which God requires of him All men have not the same leisure for some are necessarily taken up by their place and way of life in much business some in less some have their time at their own disposal some are subject to the ordering of others And all have not the same abilities and opportunities for some are able by study and reading to inform themselves some have constant need of the help and instruction of others some have most wise and understanding teachers and may have their assistance when they will others have men of meaner parts and attainments and opportunity of hearing them more seldom But now of all these whose leisure and opportunities are thus different God doth not in any wise exact the same measure No one shall be excused for what another shall be punished but if every man endeavours according to his opportunities he has done his Duty and God has accepted him And in the proportioning of this where there is first an honest heart God is not hard to please For he knows that besides their Duty men have much other business to mind which his own constitution of Humane Nature has made necessary and he allows of it The endeavours which he exacts of us are not the endeavours of Angels but of men who are soon wearied and much distracted having so many other things to employ us But he accepts of such a measure of industry in the use of all the means of knowledge as would be interpreted for an effect of an hearty desire to know his Laws by any honest man For where there is first an obedient heart God will not be equalled and
regard them Neither can it be collected beforehand from any fixt rule or reason seeing it observes none And what neither our greatest wisdom can foretel nor our exactest care prevent it is wholly to no purpose to make a matter of our study and enquiry But as for the Everlasting happiness or misery of our Souls and Bodies in the other Life and at the Resurrection they are not left at random nor fall out by accident but are dispensed by a wise hand and according to a fixt and established rule For it is God who distributes them and this distribution is in Judgment and the procedure in that is by Laws and those laws are unalterably fixt for us and most plainly declared and published to us in the Gospel So that now it is no impossible no nor extream difficult thing for us to understand which shall be our own state in the next world For the laws are well known proclaimed daily to every ear by a whole order of men set apart for that purpose their sence and meaning is obvious to any common understanding and the Judgment according to them at that day will be true and faithful God will Absolve all those whom his Gospel acquits but Condemn every man whom it accuses There will be no perverting of Justice through fear or favour no Sentence passed through partiality or ill will but a Tryal every way unbyassed and uncorrupt where Every one shall receive according to the things done in the body 2 Cor. 5.10 And Judgment shall pass upon all men according to their works Rom. 2.6 And thus as the belief of the two former Articles the immortal state either of Bliss or Misery for our Souls and the Resurrection of our Bodies will inflame us with restless desires so if we seriously believe it will this third Article of the great and general Judgment possess us with sure hopes of being satisfyed in this great enquiry which of the two States will fall to our own share And as this belief of the last Judgment will be the most effectual means to encourage so will it be withal the surest to guide our Enquiries after it It chalks us out a method for our search and directs us to the readiest course for satisfaction For if the happiness and misery of the next world is to be dispensed to every man for a reward or punishment according to the direction of those Laws which promise or threaten them then have we nothing more to do in this enquiry but to examine well what those laws are what obedience they require what allowances and mitigations they will bear and what lot and condition they assign us For in that day we shall be look'd upon to be what they declare us and be doom'd to that state which they pronounce for us What they speak to us all now that the Judge of all the world will pronounce upon us all then their sentence shall be his and what they denounce he will execute He will judge us by no other measure but his own Laws those very Laws which he has taken so much care to proclaim to us and continually to press upon us which he has put into every one of our hands and made to be sounding daily in our ears the laws and sanctions of the Gospel Our blessed Saviour Christ the Judge himself has told us this long ago The word that I have spoken the same shall judge men at the last day Joh. 12.48 And his great Apostle Paul has again confirmed it Rom. 2. God shall judge the world at that day according to my Gospel vers 16. If we perform what those Laws peremptorily require they now already declare us blessed and such at the last day will Christ pronounce us But if by sinning against them we fall short of it they denounce nothing but everlasting woes and miseries and those he will execute For he tells us plainly that when he shall come to judgment in the Glory of his Father with his holy Angels he will reward every man according to his works Mat. 16.27 To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality he will give eternal life Rom. 2.7 But to them who obey not the Truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish and that upon every man whether he be Jew or Gentile vers 8 9. For all this shall be acted in the greatest integrity without preferring one before an other It is only the difference in mens works which shall difference their conditions but they who have been equal in their sins shall be equal also in their sufferings For at the appearance of Jesus Christ God as S t Peter tells us without any respect of persons judges according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.7.17 The way then whereby to satisfie our selves in this great matter is this To look well into the Gospel there to learn what we should be and into our own hearts and lives there to see what indeed we are and thence to conclude what in the next world whether in a state of Life or Death we shall be And to shew this to every man and to let him see now beforehand how he stands prepared for the next world and whether if he should be called away presently to the Bar of that Judgment he would be everlastingly acquitted or condemned in it is my present business and design It is to let us see our Eternal Condition before we enter on it and to make it evident to every man who is both capable and willing to be instructed what shall be his endless doom of Life or Death before the Judge pronounce it And since the Rule of that Court whereby we must all be tryed and which must measure out to us either Life or Death is as we have seen none other than the Gospel of our Judge and Saviour Jesus Christ that I may manage this enquiry with the greater light and clearness I will proceed in this method First I will enquire What is that condition of our happiness or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts Secondly What are its mitigations and allowances those defects which it pardons and bears with And when at any time we fall short of this condition and thereby forfeit all right and title to that happiness and pardon which is promised to us upon it Then Thirdly What are those remedies and means of recovery which it points us out for restoring our selves again unto a state of Grace and Favour and whereupon we shall be reconciled And having by this means discovered what in the great and general judgment shall really and truly determine our last estate what shall be connived at in it and when once 't is lost what shall restore to it I shall in the Fourth and last place Remove those groundless doubts and scruples which perplex the minds of good and safe but yet erring and misguided people concerniâ—â— it And having in this manner cleared up all thâ—se
God had spoken to them than by his Testimony and upon his Authority therefore are they said in believing and embracing that Divine Law which was delivered to them by Moses to believe not the Lord alone but also his Servant Moses Exod. 14.31 Joh. 5.46 to be Baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10.2 to be Moses's Disciples Joh. 9.28 to trust or place their hope in Moses Joh. 5.45 to obey or hearken unto Moses Luk. 16.31 But the most clear and full Revelation that God ever made of his will to men was by the message and mediation of his own Son Jesus Christ. For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Jews by Moses and to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Heb. 1.1 And the belief of his Gospel or taking for certain Truths upon his Authority all those things which he has declared to us in Gods Name is call'd the Christian as the other was the Mosaick Faith For he being the great Author and deriver of this last and greatest Revelation of God down to us and our belief of it being upon his immediate Authority he being as S t Paul says the Authour and finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 Our belief of it is called not only Faith towards God Heb. 6.1 but also Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 And because the knowledge of our whole Religion got into our minds this way upon our submission to Christs Authority and our Faith or belief of his Testimony therefore is our Religion it self most commonly in the Scriptures called our Faith The Preaching of it is called Preaching the Faith Gal. 1.23 the hearing of it hearing of Faith Gal. 3.2 the profession of it a profession of Faith Heb. 10.23 the contending for it a striving for the Faith Phil. 1.27 the erring in it an erring from the Faith 1 Tim. 6.10 the falling from it a making shipwrack of the Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 obedience to it the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 and the Righteousness required in it and effected by it the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.11.13 So that in like manner as the Mosaick Faith was a belief of the Divinity of the Mosaick Law and Religion upon the Authority of Moses the Christian Faith is a belief of the Divine institution of our Christian Religion upon the Authority of Christ. It is a taking upon his word all those things for truths of God which he has declared to us in Gods Name A belief begot in us by vertue of his Testimony that all his Doctrines are Gods Truths that all his Laws are Gods Precepts that all his promises are Gods Promises and that all his threats are Gods threatnings in sum that that whole Religion and Gospel which Christ has delivered to us in Gods Name is the very Religion and Word of God The belief of all this upon the Authority of Christ makes our Faith Christian and the good effects of it upon our hearts and lives make it justifying and saving For when by vertue of this Faith we truly Repent and sincerely obey which is the great condition as we have seen whereupon at the last day we must all be pardoned and justified Eternally it is a justifying as when by vertue of it we are saved and delivered from the dominion and service of our Sins which as the Angel hath assured us are those principal evils that Christ came to save us from it is a saving Faith This is the nature of our Christian knowledge and our Christian Faith And as for it now it is the very fundamental cause and natural spring of all our Christian service and obedience For it is because we believe Jesus to be the Lord because we know those Laws which he has given us and give credit to him when he tells us of the insupportable punishments which he will one day inflict for sin and of the glorious rewards which he will confer upon obedience It is by means of our knowledge and belief of all these in our minds I say that we serve and obey him in our outward actions It is our knowledge and belief that lets us see the reasonableness of his Precepts the power of his Assistances the glory of his Rewards and the terror of his Punishments and in all respects convinces us of the beauty and profit of Obedience And this sight and conviction in our minds cannot well miss of gaining our hearts and resolutions For the belief of his endless judgments will raise our fears the belief of his infinite rewards will quicken our hopes the belief of his inexpressible kindness will kindle our love and by all these our souls will be led Captive into eager desires and firm resolutions and be fully purposed to keep Gods Laws that so they may avoid that terrible Death which he threatens and attain those matchless joys which he promises to our Obedience And when once by means of this faith and knowledge Gods Laws have gain'd both our wills and passions which are the inward springs and causes of them they cannot fail of being obeyed in our works and actions which are produced by them But we shall quickly go on to perform what we resolve and to do what we desire and so in very deed fulfill and obey them Upon which account of our Christian Faith having so mighty an influence upon our Christian and obedient practice our obedience it self as being the effect of it and produced by it is call'd the obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 The Righteousness which it exacts of us and cooperates to work in us the Righteousness of Faith Gal 5.5 Our Christian warfar or striving against Sin is called the good sight of Faith 1 Tim 6.12 And because in this contest our great succors which protect us and keep us from fainting and at last make us victorious are some points or promises of our Religious belief therefore it is stiled a shield and a breast-plate of Faith 1 Thess. 5.8 and S t John affirms plainly that this is the victory over the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And for this reason it is because our Faith and knowledge are so powerful a cause and principle of our Obedience that God speaks so great things of them and has made such valuable promises to them He never intends to reward the Faith and knowledge of our minds further than they effect the obedience of our actions It is only when they are carryed on to this effect when they become an obedient knowledge and a working Faith that they confer a right to the promised reward and are available to our Salvation For when in the places mentioned or in any other God promises that he who knows Christ or believes in Christ shall live he speaks metonymically and means Faith and knowledge with this effect of a working service and obedience As for knowledge 't is plain that God accepts it no otherwise
of death Rom. 1.29 30 32. The Servant that shall begin to eat and to drink with the drunken shall have his portion appointed with Hypocrites in the place where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Matth. 24.49 51. Many are enemies of the Cross of Christ whose God is their Belly which they carefully serve in voluptuous eating who are altogether worldly and mind earthly things whose end is destruction Phil. 3.18 19. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton or ye have lived deliciously and fared luxuriously Ye Ye have nourished or fed your hearts as men use to do Cattle which they intend for the Shambles against or in a day of slaughter Weep therefore and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you James 5.1 5. Love not the world nor covet and ambitiously pursue the rich and splendid things of the world But if any man do love the world I declare this concerning him that the Love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 Blessed is he who shall not be offended in me or not scandalized and turned out of the way and profession of my Religion through any difficulties or persecutions that befal him in it Matth. 11.6 For he who will save his life in this world by fleshly policy and wicked compliances against his Duty shall lose it in the world to come but whosoever shall lose his life or other temporal enjoyments for my sake or for an honest owning of my Laws and Religion that same man shall find it Matth. 16.25 And for the prohibitions of the second Class impiety we have their penalty expressed in the Texts ensuing The works of the Flesh are manifest idolatry witchcraft of which I tell you that they who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Gal. 5.19 20 21. But the unbelievers and sorcerers and idolaters shall have their part in the Lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death Rev. 21.8 The wicked man hath said in his heart God hides his face he will never see what men do and therefore he will not require an account of it But thou Lord dost behold mischief and spite and that too to punish and requite it with thy hand Psal. 10.11 13 14. Being haters of God without understanding or foolish which in the judgment of God are worthy of death Rom. 1.30 31 32. In the last days perillous times shall come for men shall be Blasphemers unthankful unholy heady and these are men of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith 2 Tim. 3.1 2 4 8. They that despise and dishonour me shall be lightly set by 1 Sam. 2.30 Because thou hast no zeal for me but art lukewarm and neither hot nor cold I will spew thee as men do warm water which the Stomach loaths and nauseates out of my mouth Rev. 3.16 If we deny him he also will deny us 2 Tim. 2.12 And our being ashamed of and not owning and maintaining him and his Religion although it be at a time when impiety is barefaced in an adulterous and sinful Generation is intepreted by him for such damnable denial of him For what is called denying me and my words Matth. 10.33 is upon another occasion repeated in S t Mark and expressed by being ashamed of them Mark 8.38 Ye have heard that it hath been said in old time Thou shalt not forswear or perjure thy self but shalt perform unto the Lord thy Vows But in addition to this I say unto you Swear not at all in your common converse but let your communication or ordinary discourse be yea yea and nay nay for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil Matth. 5.33 34 37. And these Precepts are of the number of those whereof Christ had expresly said ver 19. He who breaks the least of these Commandments shall be least or none at all in the Kingdom of Heaven The Law with its terrors and severe sanctions is not made for a righteous man who would do what it requires without them but for the lawless and disobedient for ungodly for unholy and prophane for perjured persons that by means of its dreadful punishments it might either fright them from sinning or take vengeance on them after they should have sinned against it 1 Tim. 1.9 10. Wo unto him that strives through contumacious and repining carriage with his Maker Isai. 45.9 And for the necessity of observing the prohibitions of the third Head injustice towards men take these places The works of the Flesh are manifest adultery murther of which I tell you that they who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Gal. 5.19 21. Being filled with all unrighteousness covetousness deceit covenant-breakers or perfidious who in the judgment of God are worthy of death Rom. 1.29 30 31 32. This is the will of God That no man go beyond and defraud his Brother in any matter or way whatsoever whether it be extortion oppression or plain couzenage for the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forwarned you and testified 1 Thess. 4.3 6. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither thieves nor covetous shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 10. In the last Days perillous times shall come for men shall be Truce-breakers false Accusers or Slanderers and Calumniators from such turn away for they are men of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 5 8. Out of the heart proceed thefts false witness murthers these defile or pollute the man and so exclude him from Heaven where nothing can ever enter that is unholy and unclean Matth. 15.19 20. Thou hast greedily gained of thy Neighbour by extortion therefore I have smitten my hand at thy dishonest gain Can thy heart endure or thy hands be strong in the day when I shall deal with thee Ezek. 22.12 13 14. All Lyars shall have their part in the Lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death Rev. 21.8 And as for all the Particulars of uncharitableness we have their sanction in these Scriptures following Being filled with wickedness maliciousness full of envy malignity whisperers back-biters despightful or contumelious implacable unmerciful who in the judgment of God are all worthy of death Rom. 1.29 30 31. Recompence to no man evil for evil avenge not your selves but rather instead of that give place unto wrath Rom. 12.17 19. For if ye forgive not but revenge upon men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses Matth. 6.15 Deal thus therefore with your enemies not rendring evil for evil or railing for railing but contrariwise blessing or benediction knowing this That hereunto are ye
and practise all other Vertues that are gainful not because we love God but only because we love mony We may be just and honest and seemingly religious not for the sake of a Commandment but of our own credit because the contrary practice would wound our good Name in the world and stain our reputation And now when our own lusts and vices our carnal pleasures and temporal advantages strike in after this manner with Gods Laws and command the same service which he enjoins us we may pretend if we will and as too oft we do that all is for his sake and that these performances which are really owing to our own self-interests come from us upon the account of Religion and Obedience And when we falsifie and feign thus it is flat dissimulation It is no more but acting the part of an obedient and religious man seeing like an Actor on the Stage we are that person whom we represent not in inward truth and reality but only in outward shew and appearance which is the very nature of hypocrisie But for a man to be sincere in Gods service is the same as really to intend that obedience which he professes It is inwardly and truly to will and do that for his sake which in outward shew and appearance we would be thought to do It is nothing else as the Psalmist says but truth in the inward parts Psal. 51.6 the having our inward design and intention to agree with our outward profession and being verily and indeed those obedient persons which we pretend to be And as for this sincerity of our performance of what God requires viz. our doing it for his sake and because he commands it it is altogether necessary to make such performance become obedience and to qualifie us for the rewards of those that obey For without it we do not observe Gods will but our own his Command had no share in what we did because it had been done although he had said nothing so that in our performance of it we served not him but our own selves And what has God to thank us for if we do nothing but our own pleasure Wherein do we serve him by acting only according to our own liking That cannot be charged on him which is not designed for him and if we do what he commands no otherwise than thus it is all one as if we had done nothing But if ever we expect that God should judge us at the last Day to have obeyed him we must be sincere in our obedient performances For the Lord looketh not on the outward appearance and pretence saith Samuel but he looks on the inward intention and design which is the heart 1 Sam. 16.7 He saves as the Psalmist tells us the upright in heart Psal. 7.10 And again As for the upright in heart they and they alone shall glory Psal. 64.10 For it is not from the bare outward appearance and profession but from the heart says Solomon that proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 And this is plainly declared in the express words of the Law it self For it accepts not a heartless service nor accounts it self obeyed by what was never intended for it But thus it bespeaks us The Lord thy God requires thee to serve him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. For he is a great God a mighty and a terrible to all that do otherwise and who in his Judgement regardeth not persons nor to corrupt him taketh rewards Deut. 10.12 17. And the Apostle tells the Philippians that their being sincere is the way to be without offence till the Day of Christ Phil. 1.10 And thus we see that to render our obedience acceptable at the last Day it is absolutely necessary that it be sincere and unfeigned We must do what Gods Laws prescribe not only because our own credit or interest sometimes requires it but because God has commanded it In all our obedient performances our heart and design must go along with him before ever he will recompence and reward us So that 't is plain we cannot obey God either against our will and intention or without them seeing our wills and intentions themselves are the very life and soul of our obedience The prime part of our Duty consists in the directing of our Design for even that which is done agreeably to Gods Command must be aimed and intended for him or else it will never be owned and approved by him But that we may the better judge of this sincerity of our service which is measured by our intention and design we must take notice of a two-fold intention For it is either 1. Actual and express Or 2. Habitual and implicite Now it is this latter which is always and indispensably required to the sincerity of our service but as for the former it is not always necessary though oftentimes it be Intention is the tendency of the soul towards some end which it likes and which it thinks to compass and endeavour after And this is one prime requisite in the actions of men and that which distinguisheth our operations from the actions of brute Beasts for what they do proceeds from the necessary force of uncontriving Nature and instinct but what we from reason and design And the cause of this difference is this Because God has given the brute Beasts no higher Guide and Commander of their actions than appetite and passion whose motions are not chosen with freedom and raised in them by reason and thought but merely by the necessitating force of outward objects themselves and those impressions which they make upon them For they act altogether through love and hatred hopes and fears and they love and hate not through reason and discourse but through the natural and mechanical suitableness or offensiveness of those objects which they act for But as for us men he has put all our actions under the power and in the disposal not of outward things but of something within us even our own free will They are not imposed upon us by the force of any thing without us but are freely chosen by us we are not their Instruments but their Authours they flow from our own pleasure and undetermined choice Now as our actions are at the disposal and command of our wills so do our wills themselves command and dispose of them not blindly and by chance but always for some reason and upon some design For in themselves they are indifferent to make us either omit or act neglect or exert them And therefore to determine our wills one way rather than the other to act them rather than to let them alone they must be moved and perswaded by such Arguments as are fit to win upon them Now that which can move and gain upon our wills is only goodness We will and desire nothing but what we think is good for us and which tends some way or other to better and advantage us For what we
of the Earth but bare understanding of them doth not make him partake with them or subject to be punished for them But to make these meer apprehensions and imaginations either of good or evil an instance of obedience or disobedience they must be causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or practice For our inward thoughts and imaginations are Springs and Principles both of our inward choice and also of our outward operations And the service which God requires of them is the service of the principle He demands the obedience of our minds as a means and in order to a further obedience of our hearts and actions He expects that we should think so long and so often upon the absoluteness of his authority the kindness of his Nature the reasonableness of his Commands the glory of his rewards and the terrour of his punishments till in our hearts we chuse those things which he has commanded and perform them in our works and practice For our thoughts of him and of his Laws are not in themselves Obedience but only a Spring and Principle of it and a good step and degree towards it Our knowledge shall be judged an acceptable service as it carries us on to performance but no otherwise For hereby alone says S t John we know that we know him with such knowledge as shall be accepted by him if we keep his Commandments 1 John 2.3 And on the other side our bare imaginations and apprehensions of some forbidden sin are then only disobedient when they carry us on to chuse or practise those things that are sinful We must go on from thought to choice or practice before the vices thought of become our own and our apprehensions of sin become themselves sinful For the thoughts of sin have the sinfulness of means and causes they are sinful so far as they help on either our consent or performance So our Saviour has determined in one instance viz. that of lustful looks and apprehensions Matth. 5. He that looks upon a woman so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart ver 28. As for our thoughts and imaginations then we see what obedience in them is required to our acceptance and when they are disobedient and will destroy us For our counsels and contrivances of evil are always sinful and so are all such simple thoughts and apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them And as for our imaginations and apprehensions of things commanded or forbidden by any other Laws they are imperfect things and not fully grown up to the perfect Stature either of obedience or of disobedience So that they are neither punished nor rewarded in themselves but so far only as they are causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or actions And then as for our affections their measures are the very same with those already mentioned of our bare imaginations and simple apprehensions For their service and obedience is that of the principle and their Sentence shall be according to those effects either in our wills or practice which flow from it If we love and desire obedience so far as to chuse and act it this degree of affection will gain us God's love and favour and secure his rewards but less than it no other shall He that keeps my Commandments saith Christ he it is that loveth me and they only who so love me in obeying me shall be beloved again of my Father and I will love them John 14.15 21. But if our love and desire of evil things carry us on to chuse or act any instance of disobedience for the sake of that which is loved and desired then are our affections sinful and such as will destroy us The desire of evil is not so truly the state of mortal sin as of dangerous temptation it is not deadly in it self but kills by carrying us on to a sinful and deadly choice and actions For when once it has got to that degree it is obnoxious to a dreadful Sentence Whereof the Psalmist gives us one instance in the love of violence Him that loveth violence the soul of the Lord hateth Psal. 11.5 And S t John says the same of the love of lying and the Case is alike in every other sin Without in outer darkness are murtherers and whatsoever loveth or maketh a lye Rev. 22.15 And thus we see what measure of obedience is required in these two faculties and what kinds and degrees of thoughts and affections are to be used or restrained to make theirs an acceptable Service For we must abstain from all evil counsels and contrivances from all simple apprehensions which are particularly forbidden and put in use all such as are particularly enjoined and as for all other our bare thoughts and imaginations and all our affections and desires we must fix them upon our Duty so long till they make us perform it and never suffer them to issue out upon evil so far till they carry us on either to chuse or practise it But besides these two faculties viz. our minds and affections there is yet another whose service is necessary to render ours an acceptable obedience and that is Thirdly Our hearts or wills also It is an absurd Dream for any man to think of serving God without his will because without that none of his actions can be called his own For that only is imputed to us which is chosen by us and which it was in the power of our own wills either to promote or hinder no man deserving praise or being liable to answer for what he could not help But of all persons God most of all regards our hearts in all our performances He perfectly discerns them and he estimates our services according to them So that it is not possible for any of us to obey him unwillingly in regard the choice of our will and heart it self is that which renders any action a saving and acceptable obedience For out of the heart as Solomon saith proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 The choice then as well as the practice of our Duty is plainly necessary to render it available to our salvation But on the other side if we chuse sin although we miss of opportunity to act it the bare choice without the practice is sufficient to our condemnation For even by that when we proceed no further our heart has gone astray from God and we are polluted by the sin which we resolve upon in our own choice since out of the heart as our Saviour tells us proceeds the pollution of the man Matth. 15.19 20. We may commit all sort of transgressions and incurr the punishment of them merely by consenting to them inwardly in our hearts without ever compleating them in our outward operation For our Lord himself has thus determined it in one instance and the Case is the same in all
upon them They have trampled already upon all spiritual aids and benummed and silenced their own Consciences and quite hardened themselves in their wickedness so that now they have nothing to hinder them but advance to work all manner of sin with greediness and wantonness and thereby fall under the severest curse that can be met with in Hell and damnation And as for this progress of all Renegado Saints and revolting Sinners both in sin and also in suffering the Scripture is express and plain When the unclean Spirit which is once gone out of a man returns into him again says our Saviour he taketh unto himself seven other Spirits which are more wicked than he himself is and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is made worse in all respects by this means than the first Matth. 12.43 44 45. The man becomes a greater Sinner and a greater Sufferer than otherwise he ever would have been For if after men have once escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledg of Christ's Gospel they are again entangled therein and overcome by it then is the latter end worse with them than the beginning For it had really been by much the better for them not to have known the way of righteousness at all than after they have known and walked in it to put such a slur upon it and to revolt and turn from the holy Commandment which was delivered unto them and for some time embraced by them 2 Pet. 2.20 21. As for an obedience then which goes but half way and breaks off before it has got to the end so far is it from availing us unto pardon and life that in very deed it renders our present case more desperate and our future punishment more insupportable But that obedience which God will accept and in which alone we may safely place our confidence must be as of our whole man so of our whole time likewise We must persevere in it through all Seasons and take care both to live and dye in it For our reward will be dispensed out to us according to the nature of our service at the time of payment and he only as our Saviour says that endureth to the end shall be saved Matth. 10.22 CHAP. VI. Of the third sort of integrity viz. that of the Object or of obedience to all the particular Laws and parts of Duty The CONTENTS Of the partiality of mens obedience from their love of some particular sins Three pretences whereby they justifie the allowed practice of some sins whilst they are obedient in some other instances The first pretence is the preservation of their Religion and themselves in times of persecution A particular account of mens disobedience under this pretence The vanity of it shown from the following considerations Religion needs not to be rescued from persecution The freedom of outward means of Religion is restrained by it but the substance of Religion it self is not It is extended in some parts and ennobled in all by sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions BUT to render our service perfectly intire and compleatly upright it is not enough that there be an integrity of the Subject by our obeying with all our powers or an integrity of time by our obeying in all Seasons of which two I have discoursed hitherto but it is further necessary that there be an integrity of the Object also or that what we do thus obey with our whole man and our whole time be nothing less than all the particular Laws of Duty and instances of Obedience nothing under the whole will of God We must not pick and chuse in the doing of our Duty for if we do not obey all we obey not right in any Because all the Laws of God are bound upon us by the same power and enjoyned by the same Authority so that if we fulfil any one upon this account of his having required it the same reason holds for our fulfilling all the rest This indeed is very hardly believed because it is so hard to practise For almost every man has some sin or other which he can as well dye as part with It has got his heart and is become the Master of his affections and since he loves it so dearly he hopes that God will bear with it too He will part with any thing else for Gods sake he will not stick at any other service nor repine at any other imposition all that he craves is only to be tolerated in his Darling Lust and to be allowed to serve him without cutting off what is as useful as his right hand or pulling out what is as dear to him as his own right eye to please him And when men are thus desirous of reconciling the service of God with the service of their lusts when they are resolved to hope and yet resolved to sin they have no other way but to perswade themselves that the keeping of some Precepts shall attone for the transgression of others and to bear up themselves with the delusive hopes and false confidences of a partial and a half obedience They presently forge new terms of life and pardon which God never made and which he will never stand to for finding that they do not perform all his Laws and yet resolving that what they do perform shall be sufficient for them they straightway fansie that if they do keep some for the rest they shall have a Dispensation It shall be enough for them to part with such lusts for Gods sake as they can best spare but some they will keep and them he must allow and so instead of a perfect and intire they put him off with a partial and a maimed service Now this partiality of obedience is in so many kinds as men have sins that are endeared to them which they will not leave for God's sake but join with him For every beloved sin can make an interest and Party and if it reign in us so far as to make us fulfil it and
him entirely and above all things and neither will'd nor acted any thing besides when it stood in competition with him The sincerity fervency and integrity of their service was all which they had to shew in answer to this Commandment and upon the account of them God did accept them and has left it on record to all the world that they have fulfilled it As for the last of these viz. Integrity it indeed includes in it all the rest For it is the greatest warranty and effect of fervency and the best evidence of the sincerity of our service Because this as I said before is the great measure of acceptance in our thoughts and affections viz. that they carry us on to acceptable works and actions And this is the great Rule whereby to judge of a sincere service viz. that men be universal and entire in their obedience So that if once we perform all that God requires of us there is no further question to be made but that we perform it honestly and with that fervency and concernedness which is sufficient to our acceptance And this integrity of obedience including both the other is that very thing which is meant by the service with all the heart and with all the soul which is exacted of us in the Commandment Whereof we have still a further argument because in almost all the places where any man is said to fulfill this we find that annexed as its explication Which is a plain interpretation of the Scripture to it self that to obey with all our powers in its sence is nothing else but to be uniform undivided and entire in our obedience David sayes God followed me with all his heart which appears in this because he followed me so as to fulfill all my will and to act nothing against it but to do that only which is right in mine eyes 1 Kings 14.8 Caleb and Joshua followed the Lord wholly which was seen in that their obedience was entire to him and they did not transgress in those particular Laws of Duty by the breach whereof others provoked him Numb 32.10 11 12. And of Zacharias and Elizabeth S t Luke sayes that they were blameless because they walked not in some but in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord Luk. 1.6 But on the other side as for all such as were partial in their obedience to God and kept some instances of duty but transgressed others according as they themselves listed they are said not to be whole in their hearts and other faculties towards him Jehu sayes the text took no heed to walk in the Law of the God of Israel with all his heart for of this there is a clear proof in that his heart run after some sins as well as some duties because he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam although he did from others 2 King 10.31 If you return unto the Lord with all your heart sayes Samuel then put away that particular sin which you still adhere to your strange Gods and serve him only 1 Sam. 7.3 And that this is true in every mans case as well as it was in theirs the Psalmist plainly assures us when he layes it down for an universal maxime that they seek the Lord with their whole heart who do no iniquity Psal. 119.2 3. And thus upon all these accounts it appears that to serve the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength according to the tenour of the Commandment is neither more nor less than to serve him universally and entirely For it can bear no other sense because upon no greater or better service than this God himself has declared that men have served him with all their heart according to the Commandment and more cannot be required when this fulfills it It can mean no more because that all which it should mean further is impossible in the present condition of humane nature and therefore is no fit matter of a Law nor subject to a Commandment And lastly it doth mean no more because the Scriptures themselves where they set it down are wont to annex this interpretation and thus explain it And thus at last we have seen what degrees and manner of obedience to all the Laws recounted in the former Book is necessary to our acceptance For we must obey sincerely and entirely if ever we expect to reap the rewards of obedience We must keep every particular Law of God and that through our whole lives we must think on them in our minds and pursue them with our affections and choose them with our wills so far till we perform them with our strength in outward and bodily operation This uprightness of obedience which is a certain evidence of its sincerity is all that Gods Law requires of us and it will infallibly save us at the last day although less than it nothing in the world will As for that condition of life and pardon then which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us we now see plainly what it is For it is nothing else but our obedience to all the forementioned Laws of God in sincerity and uprightness It is by this that all the world must stand or fall at the last day according to their performance or neglect whereof they shall then be judged either to live or die eternally This indeed though it be a very great will seem a very uncouth and severe truth in the degeneracy of manners and loose lives of our times But if it do that is wholly our own fault and can be no prejudice at all to the declarations of Christs Gospel For our Lord has proclaimed it to us plainly enough and if our own wicked hearts make us shut our eyes and willing to overlook it for that we must blame our selves but can never hope thereby to evacuate his sentence This in very deed is the Gospel that he has published and these are the terms of mercy which he has procured for us So that if we live up to them we shall be saved by him but if we fail to perform these gracious demands we have no benefit at all by his death nor any ground of hope from his Gospel All that can be said is that he offered us Grace and Pardon upon most fair and easie terms but that we would not accept them But we preferred the pleasure of our sins before all the glory of his rewards and chose to hazard all those evils which he threatned rather than to be at the pains to perform that condition which he peremptorily injoyned But although by our wicked lives we in these dayes cast off the light yoke of Christ as over-burdensome and make the Covenant of Grace it self to become a rigorous condition yet once the case was otherwise and the world was more Christian. For they who professed Christs Religion then performed all that he commanded and practised all that which as we have seen his Gospel doth injoyn
Parents or by the authority and instruction of spiritual guides they imbibed it at first in the simplicity of their souls and since that have continually been used to it and bred up in it So that although they never serve that sin whereto it ministers in other instances but alwayes fear and conscientiously avoid it yet where this prejudicate Opinion warrants it they do These Prejudices I say are not altogether inconsistent with an honest and obedient heart but are sometimes entertained by innocent and religious men although many others damnably disobey in them But then there are many others which are of a more heinous and damning nature which although some well-meaning men may pardonably admit at first before they have seen the damnable consequences and effects of them yet very few can adhere to when they are set before them without being in danger if repentance intervene not to be damn'd for them Of which sort among several others I take these to be that follow Some are possessed with an odd belief that Christ is a Temporal and Secular King in Sion i. e. the Church on Earth and that his subjects are to fight for his Interests and for the protection of his Religion with the same worldly force and armed violence that the subjects of other secular Princes use And as for Earthly Kings since they are but Deputies and Delegates of Christ the Supream King of all that they are no further to be submitted to than they act serviceably and subordinately under him but that they may yea ought to be persecuted as Enemies and Apostates from King Jesus if in any thing they oppose and act against him Now when men have once imbibed this Principle they run on furiously as every man must who understands it into all the mischiefs of Rebellion and Bloodshed For in all Instances where this prejudice leads them to it they utterly overlook as things not belonging to them all the plain Laws of Honour and Reverence Submission and Obedience to Governours of Justice and Charitableness Mercy and Peaceableness towards their Fellow-subjects and burst out violently into contempt of Governours and reproachfull usage and speaking evil of Dignities into revenge and fierceness strife and bitterness sedition and tumults spoils and robberies murders and bloodshed and into all other licentious and extravagant effects of a most unjust war and horrible rebellion In all which they think that they only fight Gods battles and spoil and slay his enemies and like good Subjects and Soldiers of the Lord of Hosts with all their might maintain his Rights and serve his Interest For all this rebellion against earthly Kings they esteem to be nothing else but a proof of their Loyalty and just Allegiance to King Jesus the Soveraign Lord of all who by these worldly means must Rule on Earth although he dwells in Heaven Others to exalt the Temporal Monarchy and Grandeur of Christs pretended Vicar here on Earth have imbibed this Principle that a good end will justifie any action and that all is lawfull which is necessary and profitable for the advancement of the Churches Interest And having once sucked in this venemous Opinion in all those actions wherein it is any wayes concerned there is no Precept so plain which they cannot overlook nor any obligation so sacred which they do not cancel They stick not at the breach of all the most exalted and sublime Laws of Christ. For instead of being meek and gentle they are fierce and furious instead of being slow to wrath they are enemies without provocation instead of forgiving injuries they are violent to revenge them instead of doing good to enemies they are eager to destroy them instead of taking up the Cross and bearing it with patience themselves they are utterly impatient till by any means they can force it upon others Nay they burst through the most notorious and weighty Laws of Humanity and Nature in dissimulation and equivocations in lies and perjuries in sowing strife and all manner of unpeaceableness in spoils and robberies murders and assassinations treasons and rebellions which even natural conscience where it has any force at all must needs tremble and be amazed at But yet all this time they think that they are doing Gods work whil'st indeed they are subverting his whole Religion for their poisonous Principle bears them out through all and they are confident that what they do will be accepted for his service because it is intended for the advancement of his Church Some again of the more extravagant Anabaptists entertained a wild Opinion that all Dominion is founded in Grace and that nothing but virtue and holiness can give any man a title to his possessions And when once they had believed this they acted but agreeably to their own Principle in overlooking all the plain Laws of Justice and Honesty in all those instances where this Doctrine would warrant the contrary and in exercising all sorts of fraud couzenage spoils and robberies where they had power and opportunity to commit them For their spoiling of their neighbours they esteemed to be like Israels spoiling of the Egyptians viz. a taking away that which belonged not to them seeing God had given it away from them It were endless to recount all the enormously wicked and disobedient Opinions which ill men take up in favour of their beloved sins For some overlook the plain duties of temperance mortification and self-denial because they are sensual and fleshly and others give no heed to the manifest duty of paying tythes because they are loth to part with their money When Christ preached up a charitable use of the unrighteous Mammon the Pharisees who were covetous would not believe and understand but derided him Luk. 16.14 And the same way it fares with other duties when mens unmortified lusts which are struck at by them are opposed against them By these instances and many more which might be mention'd it clearly appears how destructive many mens consciences or prejudicate Opinions are of several parts of Religion and the Divine Laws They do in great measure cancel the force of Duty and make men transgress in several instances against known Laws by making them first to believe that in those cases they do not oblige them But now to determine which of these prejudices is pardonable and consistent with a justified state and which destroys and interrupts it we must observe in them this difference First That some of them get into mens minds or consciences not through any thing of an evil and disobedient heart but only through weakness of understanding or fallibility of the means of knowledge and these are consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation 2. That others get into mens consciences through some damnable lusts and vices and they are deadly and damning First Some prejudices which lead men into sin and disobedience get into their consciences not through any thing of an evil and disobedient heart but only through weakness of understanding and
For they who will live wickedly will quickly bring their minds to think wickedly Their lusts and vices will soon insinuate themselves into their judgments and apprehensions they will dispose their souls for such perswasions as are most serviceable to them and win them with ease into a belief of evil things by making them willing first and eagerly desirous to believe them For our belief of any opinion is produced in us by our diligent search and consideration of all such Arguments as can get credit to it by overlooking or clearing such difficulties or industriously considering and improving all the answers to such exceptions as are made against it As on the contrary our disbelief of any opinion is effected by overlooking or weakening all those reasons which are brought to prove it by darkening it with difficulties perplexing it with doubts and raising such exceptions as may shake or overthrow it But now as for the employing of our wit and industry in either of these it is plainly in our own choice and we deal indifferently and impartially between both or espouse either part as we stand affected If then we are earnestly desirous and strongly enclined for one way we can overlook or answer all that makes against it and throw by difficulties clear up doubts invent reasons to justifie and prove it So that the will and pleasure of our hearts will quickly draw after it the judgment of our understandings and if once we are resolved upon a way we shall soon find reasons to avow it When therefore our lusts and vices have got our hearts and give Laws to our wills and appetites they will quickly bear Rule in our understandings also We shall quickly believe that any of their gratifications are lawful when once we are greatly desirous to have them so Nothing being a more probable and ordinary effect in the nature of things as well as in the just judgment of God of a disobedient and rebellious heart than a reprobate mind or a mind void of Judgment Rom. 1.18 21 28. So long then as men have wicked hearts it cannot be expected but that they will have debauched consciences for whilst they retain unmortified lusts and vices they will justifie them in their own thoughts by damnably sinful and disobedient opinions They will take up prejudices and a wrong belief not to direct and guide but to defend their wicked practice The factious and unpeaceable man will easily perswade himself into that belief which disturbs Peace and opposes Government The covetous soul will favour any Tenet which promotes gain and advances interest The licentious Libertine will snatch at any opinion that gratifies the flesh and pleads the Cause of sensuality and softness Mens pride and ambition their fierceness and cruelty their malice and revenge their contentiousness and faction their sensuality and covetousness will make them overlook the humble and lowly the meek and gentle the patient and merciful the quiet and peaceable the generous and self-denying Laws of Christ and greedily imbibe such wicked prejudices and erroneous conceits as evacuate and overthrow them To illustrate this business let us consider it in some instances That execrable Sect of men the Gnosticks who were so famous for their impure and lawless consciences were not more notorious for their vile opinions than for their evil lives I will consider both that it may from thence more clearly appear how influential their lusts were upon their minds in begetting suitable perswasions As for their lives they were infamous for covetousness cowardice and softness in heaping up wealth and avoiding all loss of Goods and bodily pains though by means never so wicked and dishonourable and for the greatest luxury and unnaturalness in their lusts and unclean pleasures They were notoriously infamous for their covetousness and abominably soft and irreligious compliances For they are described as men that have their hearts exercised with covetous practices 2 Pet. 2.14 that do any thing because of advantage Jude 16 that forsake the right way of Worship and Religion and go astray from it into the by-paths of idolatry and prophaneness when they are like to suffer by it being thus far fitly compared to Balaam the Son of Bozor that they professing true Christianity join in idol-worship with the idolatrous Gentiles as he being a true Prophet did in the idolatrous worship of the King of Moab Numb 22.40 41 and also in that they sort and combine with the Jewish and Gentile Persecutors of the Christians as he did in cursing first and afterwards in fighting against the Israelites in the Army of Midian Numb 31.8 upon which accounts his way or errour they are said to follow 2 Pet. 2.15 Jud. 11. Their Character is to desert the publick Assemblies by reason of the heat of persecution against all that dare frequent them Heb. 10.25 to deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ when they are in danger to suffer for the owning of them Jud. 4. They were also equally notorious for abominable luxury and unnaturalness in their lusts and unclean pleasures For they are set out to us as men that are sensual Jud. 19 that account it a pleasure to riot in the day time 2 Pet. 2.13 that defile the flesh Jud. 8 that walk after the flesh in lusts of uncleanness 2 Pet. 2.10 in pernicious or as it is rendred from other Copies in the Margin of our Bibles lascivious ways vers 2 that have eyes full of adultery ver 14 and that are not content to riot in these abominable filthinesses themselves but use them as baits to decoy and draw in others alluring through the lusts of the flesh and through much wantonness those who really or for a little while had escaped from such an abominable life of errour ver 18. Thus was their life and temper over-run with covetousness basely cowardous and sinful compliances and with most filthy lusts and unnatural uncleannesses Both which S t Peter setting himself against requires all men who would be thought to have that true and saving knowledge which is opposite to that false and spurious one which they pretended to to give all diligence in adding to it these two Duties which are directly contrary to their vile lusts viz. vertue or courage and constancy which is opposite to their base arts of tergiversation and sinful compliances and continence or chastity which is contrary to their unclean practices Give all diligence to adde to virtue or valorous courage knowledge and to knowledge temperance or continence 2 Pet. 1.5 6. Now these men having such a Scene of debauchery in their lives they quickly became as lewd and debauched in their consciences When once for all their professions of knowing God they began as S t Paul says in works to deny him they quickly made their Consciences to be as filthy and polluted as were their practices To these defiled Wretches saith he is nothing pure their very mind and conscience is
notorious and unquestionable Laws to be overturned by them But since he will stick to his wicked Principle even when it destroys obedience and prefer a disputable opinion before a weighty and plain Duty 't is plain to all that he is not willing to obey but industrious to seek a shift and to evade all obligation to obedience As for this enquiry then viz. When our disobedient prejudices get into our consciences by the help of our own unmortified lusts and damning vices from these measures we may make our own souls this Answer If we are usually and in the common course of our lives guided by that lust or vice which our prejudice advances if we saw the disobedient effects of it when we first gave credit to it or if we still adhere to it after that we have been plainly showed the unquestionable and notorious sins which are avouched by it Our prejudice took place by virtue of our disobedience and without our timely repentance it will certainly condemn us If it entred innocently and honestly through the weakness of our understandings or the fallibility of the means of knowledge it would be pardoned and not imputed to us but since it gains admittance by our love to damning lusts and disobedience it is of a deadly guilt and unless repentance intervene will certainly destroy us And thus at last we have seen what ignorance is effected by our prejudices and what is to be judged of those transgressions which are incurred under it And the summ of all is this That our prejudices make us either quite overlook several Laws or even whilst we know and consider of them to venture upon several disobedient actions which really come under them not knowing that they do And if such prejudices entred through the fallibility of means and weakness of an honest understanding they are pardonable and uncondemning but if they took place by means of strong lusts and a wicked heart they are deadly sins and fit to be charged upon us as all others are without repentance to our condemnation But seeing it is much safer and infinitely more eligible to have no disobedient prejudice at all than to be put into all this danger about the pardon and forgiveness of it before I dismiss this Point I will set down one plain Rule and easie Method in matters of Duty and moment to prevent it For by this means we may all of us attain in good measure to that which S t Paul assures us was his utmost care and industrious exercise viz. a conscience void of offence or rather an inoffensive conscience which is no scandal or cause of sin to us and which doth not stumble and cast us down into any breach of Duty either towards God or towards men Acts 24.16 And the Rule which I would press upon all simple and honest minds for that purpose is this Begin with Duty and plain Laws to make them the measure whereby to judge of Notions and Opinions not with Notions and Opinions to make them the measure whereby to interpret plain Laws For our Duty is made plain and open and expressed so clearly as that every man may understand it It is no matter of skill and parts to know Christ's Commandments but an honest and a teachable heart is a better preparation to that than refinedness of wit and philosophick learning For God who gave us Laws knew the measure of all capacities and the compass of every understanding and what he intended that all should practise he wanted not skill to express so plainly that every one might apprehend it Laws are the Rule of the last Judgment and our obedience or disobedience to them is a matter of life or death and that in all reason and equity ought to be revealed clearly and sufficiently to every understanding which every man must for ever live or dye by As for Laws and Duty then they are plain and easie they are expressed in such clear and intelligible words as carry what God means by them in their usual and obvious acceptation So that in judging of them if we begin there there is no great difficulty seeing they are easily and obviously understood by any man who brings along with him an obedient and teachable mind to the obvious understanding of them But as for abstract Notions and general opinions they admit of much doubting and dispute and of great appearance of reason and variety of argument on one side as well as on the other And besides all capacities are no fit Judges of them but those only which have much quickness and much experience that can dispel the darkness by clear evidence and help the confusion by a distinct representation of things that can judge of reasons and of exceptions and of the various degrees in evidence and the just weight of arguments So that they are a matter not for the determination of common heads but for the learned and witty for refined Parts and Philosophers Yea and even among them by reason of their difficulty and doubtfulness they admit of great disputes and beget generally much variety of judgment and opinion wherein if some think true as it is very possible nay often happens that neither do the rest must of necessity be mistaken Opinions therefore and Notions are more dark and difficult less easie to be understood than plain Laws and much more liable to be mistaken So that Laws and Duty are fit to be made a Principle because we may easily understand them and be well assured of them but general Notions and Opinions being more dark and liable to errour and mistake they are not so proper to be themselves a Rule as to be measured and judged of by them And that they should so is further reasonable because in the very designs of God obedience is primarily and chiefly intended to be ministred to by Divine Truths not truths to be served and furthered by obedience For the revelation of religious truth is given by the Authour of our Religion himself in order to religious practice The very end and perfection of our Faith being to produce Good Works to make us overcome the World to save our souls or to deliver us from our sins which are those evils that Christ came to save us from And since obedience unto Laws is the end and general truths are only means whereby to compass it 't is certain that no truth can ever oppose a Duty or evacuate obedience because God would defeat his own end in revealing it should he at any time become the Author of it So that this cannot be a proper at least it is not a safe way of arguing this plain Law in such and such parts and sorts of instances contradicts a truth and therefore it is no Duty whereas we should proceed quite contrary after this manner this or that opinion interferes and undermines this or that plain Law so that it can never be a true opinion For this arguing is
fair and likely and withal it is most secure It is sure to preserve obedience because it admits of nothing that interferes with it and it is also very likely to preserve truth for it is most certain that no Doctrine can ever come from God which encourages or justifies any wickedness so that not only an obedient heart but even a free and impartial reason must quit the Principle if it appear to draw after it an evil consequence To settle Principles and Rules of Judgment then especially for simple and unlearned minds the first enquiry ought to be not what is true or false but what is good or evil For since the knowledge of this is more plain and obvious easie and accessible to all but to them most especially 't is evident that as all others so particularly they if they would secure even Truth as well as Duty must begin with Laws as their Principle and from thence make their inference to Doctrines and Opinions To avoid sinfull errours and disobedient prejudices they must use Laws and Duties as the measure whereby to judge of notions not notions and opinions as the standard whereby to measure and interpret plain Laws CHAP. VII A sixth cause of ignorance of the present actions being comprehended under a known Law And of the excusableness of our transgressions upon both these sorts of ignorance The CONTENTS All the forementioned causes of ignorance of our present actions being included in the known Law are such to knowing and learned men Besides them the difficult and obscure nature of several sins is a general cause of it to the rude and unlearned Sins upon this ignorance as well as upon ignorance of the Law it self unchosen and so consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation Where there is something of choice in it they extenuate the sin and abate the punishment though they do not wholly excuse it The excuse for these actions is only whilst we are plainly ignorant they are damning when we are enlightned so far as to doubt of them but pardonable whil'st we are in darkness or errour This excuse is for both the modes of ignorance 1. Forgetfulness 2. Errour All this pardon hitherto discoursed of upon the account of ignorance of either sort is no further than the ignorance it self is involuntary The willfulness of some mens ignorance The several steps in voluntary ignorance The causes of it Two things required to render ignorance involuntary 1. An honest heart 2. An honest industry What measures necessary to the acceptance of this industry Gods candour in judging of its sufficiency This discourse upon this first cause of an innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance summed up THus upon all these accounts which are mention'd in the two former Chapters we see it will often happen that although in the general we do know the Law which forbids any sin yet shall we still be ignorant of our present actions being comprehended under it For the small and barely gradual difference between Good and Evil the limitedness of most Laws the indirect obligations which pass upon some indifferent actions the clashing and enterfering of some of Christs Laws sometimes with other commands and sometimes with our own prejudices and prepossessed Opinions are also many reasons why after we know the General Laws that forbid them we shall still venture upon several particular actions through ignorance of their being forbidden And yet besides all these which are causes of such ignorance to the most knowing men and to those who have great parts and learning there will be moreover one great and general cause of it to the more rude and ignorant and that is the difficult and to them obscure nature of the sin it self which in the Law is expresly and by name forbidden For how many of them who hear it may be of the Law against censoriousness lasciviousness uncleanness carnality sensuality refusing of the Cross and other things do not well understand what those words mean Alas the greater number of men in the world have but very rude and imperfect notices of things they see them only in a huddle and by halves And as it is in their knowledge of other things so is it in their understanding of Sin and Duty likewise For their sight and sence of them is dark and defective and albeit they have some general and confused apprehensions of them yet is not their knowledge so clear and distinct as that they are thereby enabled to judge of every particular action whether it falls under any of them or no. And since they have but such half and imperfect notions of several sins it is no wonder although they know the General Law if they venture upon several actions which really come under it not knowing that they do And thus we see that besides the ignorance of the Law it self there is also another sort of ignorance which will be a cause of sin to several men of all sorts and that is their ignorance of their present actions being comprehended under the letter of the Law and meant by it But now as for those transgressions which men of an honest heart are guilty of through this ignorance of their own actions being included in the Law when they do know the Law that includes it They do not put them out of a state of Grace but consist with it For this Ignorance is mens unhappiness rather than their fault it is not an Ignorance of their own choosing seeing their will and choice is against it For they desire to be free from it and strive to prevent it and endeavour according to those abilities and opportunities which God has afforded them to get right and true apprehensions of all Gods will that they may perform and of every evil action that they may avoid it But it is the difficulty and intricateness of things which renders them ignorant and that is not of their making For the sins forbidden are not easily distinguished from the Liberty allow'd or from the Duty commanded in some cases and therefore it is that they mistake them and are ignorant of the sinfulness of their present action when their knowledge of it should enable them if they would to avoid it And since it has so little of their own will and the men even when by reason of their ignorance they transgress are industriously desirous to know their Duty and prepared to practise it so far as they understand it it shall have nothing of Gods anger It is altogether a pardonable slip and a pitiable instance and that is enough to recommend it to Gods mercy For he is never rigorous and severe in a case that is prepared for pity and pardon so that he will not punish but graciously forgive it And if it were otherwise who could possibly be saved For this ignorance of their present actions being comprehended in the words of the known Law is such as the wisest men have been subject to and they among the rest who were
is no avoiding of it For the Laws of God which are impositions superinduced upon our Natures by their prohibitions make several of our most natural appetites and desires themselves to be sinful the lusts of the Flesh making up a good part of the prohibitions of the Gospel But although God by his after-prohibition has made them sinful yet from that natural necessity which he had laid upon us before we cannot live intirely free from them For our Flesh will lust and make offers after such things as are naturally fitted to its liking and we cannot help it because our Bodies so long as they are conversant among the things of this World from their natural frame and constitution will still be delighted with some things to crave and desire and pained by others to hate and abhor them This I say is natural whilst there is any life and sense in our Bodies the good and evil things of the world must of necessity thus sensibly affect them and where they are affected with pleasure there 't is natural for them to desire as where they feel pain 't is natural for them to abhor the thing which occasions and produces it These first lustings then and cravings after forbidden things are natural and were made necessary before the prohibition came to make them sinful And if by an after-Law men shall be condemned for being sensibly affected with outward things or for having a sudden lust and inclination after them upon their being so sensibly affected with them then shall they be condemned for what they could not help and dye for not performing impossibilities But God neither can nor doth make any Laws which exact things so rigorous He punishes nothing in us but what proceeded from our own will nor exacts an account of us for our natural lusts and inclinations further than they are subject to our own choice and free disposal If a sudden fear or an unclean desire arise up in the heart of an holy man from the presence of outward objects or inward imaginations and the natural temper of his Blood and Spirits he shall not be put to answer for it because he could not prevent it He could no more hinder it than he can hinder the beating of his heart or the motion of his blood seeing it was no free work of his will but a natural effect of his temper And to be condemned for that is to suffer for having flesh and blood as well as Reason and Spirit and to undergo punishment for being made up of Body as well as Soul for being a man and not an Angel As for several things indeed which follow upon the first suggestion of a prohibited object and upon the first lusting after it they are not the effects of nature but of our own choice For though a fancy of evil and a sudden lusting after it from its fansied agreeableness may obtrude it self upon us whether we will or no either by chance or by occasion of a temptation yet a continued entertainment of it and a stay upon it in our imaginations to cherish lust and inflame desire cannot come upon us but by our own liking and connivence For as soon as ever we can observe them our thoughts are our own to dispose of how and upon what we please The first thought 't is true is not always in our power to hinder because many times it comes upon us e're we can observe it For our souls as I have sometimes said are souls in flesh and make use of our bodily powers in their most spiritual operations being linked so fast to them as that they cannot but communicate and be affected with them But then the stay upon it and the continued attention to it in after-entertainment is a thing that cannot be so suddenly forced upon us but we give way to it only when and how long we our selves please So that whatsoever the first fancy and desire of evil was the after-entertainment is our own seeing it came not from any necessity of nature but from the free determination or connivence of our own will But yet even these after-thoughts and inclinations after forbidden things are not always an Article of our condemnation but then only when we consent to them or practise and fulfil them For if the forbidden thing is only fansied in our minds and craved by our appetites but has got no consent of our hearts nor any endeavours of our lives and actions according to the gracious terms of that Gospel whereby we must stand or fall it is not yet come within the terrours of Judgment nor has made us liable to Death and Hell For the evil and danger of our bodily desires we must know is the evil and danger of a temptation When our appetites desire what the prohibition has made evil and our Spirits on the other side declare what the Commandment has made good then is the time of temptation or tryal whether our wills are resolved to stick to our lusts or to our Duty and whether they will prefer God or sin And herein lyes the great danger of our natural appetites for although in themselves they are not deadly and damning to any man otherwise good yet are they traps and snares to deadly and damning sins In themselves I say to any Christian man who is otherwise good and vertuous our natural appetites are not deadly and damning The lusting and inclination of our Flesh after Meats and Drinks and after ease and pleasures and the lusting of the eye after gain and riches are not absolutely and directly forbidden or in themselves and before they have got any further an Article of our condemnation No all the desires of the Flesh are naturally necessary some to preserve our own persons and some to the preservation and propagation of Mankind This God himself has made and he allows of it It is no mans sin to have a stomach to his meat or to have desires after ease and a fleshly inclination after bodily pleasures because God has so framed our Bodies that they should and therefore he cannot be angry with us if we do desire them Indeed he has not left these desires to their own swing but has put several restraints upon them he has bound them up from some objects and in some degrees For we are forbid to desire and lust after meat and drink ease and pleasure riches and plenty when either we are injurious to other men in procuring that which we lust after or when we are excessive and intemperate in the use of it or for its sake transgress any other Commandment Our desires of meat and drink for instance must not carry us on to excessive measures in gluttony and drunkenness our carnal lusts must not draw us on to act them with undue objects in fornication adultery rapes or other prohibited uncleannesses and our desire of money must not betray us into thefts or robberies fraud and circumvention extortion and oppression niggardliness uncharitableness
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know
of none but what we have repented of we have just reason to take a good heart to our selves and to wait for death in hopeful expectations If our own hearts condemn us not says Saint John then have we confidence towards God 1 John 3.21 There is no sin that will damn us but a wilful one and when we sin wilfully if our heart is soft and honest we sin willingly and against our Conscience our own heart sees and observes it before and will keep us in mind of it after we have committed it So that if any man has a vertuous and a tender heart a heart that is truly dâ—sirous to obey obey God and afraid in any thing to offend him when his Conscience is silent he may justly conclude that his Condition is safe for if it doth not condemn him God never will An honest mans heart I say must condemn him before he have sufficient reason to condemn himself And that too not for every idle word or every fruitless lust or every dulness of spirit and distraction in prayer and coldness in devotion or such other mistaken marks whereby too many are wont to judge of their title to salvation No Heaven and Hell are not made to depend upon these things but although a man be guilty of them he may be eternally happy notwithstanding them But that accusation of his Conscience which may give an honest man just reason to condemn himself must be an accusation for a wilful breach or deliberate transgression of some particular Law of Sobriety Piety Justice Charity Peaceableness it must accuse him of an unrepented breach of some of those Laws above mentioned which God has plainly made the terms of life and the condition of salvation And the accusation for the breach of these Laws must be particular and express not general and roving For some are of so suspicious and timorous a temper that they are still suspecting and condemning of themselves when they know not for what reason They will indict themselves as men that have sinned greatly but they cannot shew wherein they judge of themselves not from any reason or experience but at a venture and by chance they speak not so truly their opinions as their fears not what their understandings see and discern but what their melancholy suggests to them For ask them as to any one Particular of the Laws of God and run them all over and their Consciences cannot charge them with any wilful which is withal an unrepented transgression of it But let them overlook all Particulars and pass a judgment of themselves only in general when they do not judge from particular instances which are true evidence but only from groundless and small presumptions and then they pass a hard sentence upon themselves and conclude that their sins are very great and their condition dangerous But no man shall be sentenced at the last Day for Notions and Generalities but it is our particular sins which must then condemn us For God's Laws bind us all in single actions and if our own Consciences cannot condemn us for any one wilful which is withal an unrepented action God will not condemn us for them altogether If our own heart therefore doth not accuse us for the particular wilful and unrepented breaches of some or other of those Laws above mentioned which God has made the indispensable condition of our acceptance we are secure as to the next World and may comfortably hope to be acquitted in the last Judgment Being conscious of no wilful sin but what we have repented of and by mercy and forgiveness of other men and our prayers to God begging pardon for our involuntary sins we shall have nothing that will lye heavy upon us at the last Day but may go out of the World with ease and dye in comfort Our departure hence may be in peace because our appearance at Gods Tribunal shall surely be in safety For we shall have no worse charged upon us there than we are able here to charge upon our selves but leaving this World in a good Conscience we shall be sentenced in the next to a glorious reward and bid to enter into our Masters joy there to live with our Lord for ever and ever Amen Soli Deo Gloria FINIS * 1 Joh. 2 17-29 ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clâ—m Ro. 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 30. a Gal. 3.19 b Matt 1.21 c Jam. 2.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. ad Cor. c. 31. e Quid est â—ide liter Christo credere â— est fideliter Dei mandata servare Salvian de Gub. l. 3. p. 67. Ed. Oxon. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 10. f Matt. 25.34 35 3â— c. g Heb. 1.17 19. h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrought to his works or to make him work i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k Neâ— Christianus esse videtur qui Christiani nominis opus non agit Salvian de Gub. l 4. p. Ed. Ox. 90. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Noah's preaching Righteousness and Repentance before the flood 2 Pet. 2.5 and 1 Pet. 3.20 is thus expessed by St. Clement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 9. c Prophetarum Filii And in the like sence among the Gentiles Poetarum Filii d Jer. 8.6 So St. Clement uses the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promiscuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what in the Septuagint whom he follows in Citations is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezek. 33.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he giving the sence though not the words according to the Apostolical usage expresses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 7.8 And agreeably to this the compilers of our Liturgy in the Sentences before Morning Service in our Old Common Prayer Books translate Matt. 3.2 Repent ye for the Kingdom of God is at hand thus Amend your lives for the Kingdom c. As on the other side they expound Ezek. 18.21 If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right c. thus At what time soever a sinner repenteth c. Quid planius quà m quod voluntas pro facto reputâ—tur ubi factum exclâ—dic necessitas nisi forte putetur in malo quà m in bono efficacior inveniri voluntas apud Deum qui charitas est promptioresset ad ulciscendum quam ad remunerandum misericors miserator Dominus Bernard Ep. ad Hugonem de Sancto Victore quae est Ep. 77. p. op 1458. f Quid dicam nescio quid promittam penitus ignoro revocare ab inquisitione ultimi remedii periclitantes durum impium spondere autem aliquid in tam sera cautione temerarium Salv. de Avaritia l. 1. p. 363. Ed. Oxon. a Levit. 26.40.42 b Novum monstri genus â—adem