cast an aspiring glance after them Upon the whole matter we see this first Obstacle is such as no creature in Heaven and Earth was able to remove out of the way 2. Ex parte creaturae the impossibility is apparent may we look up to Heaven There seems to be a division above a kind of variance among the divine Attributes On the one hand Mercy that tender indulgent Attribute seems to melt and cry out over fallen man What! shall man made after the divine Image a poor seduced creature shall he nay his whole race Eternally perish shall I have never a Monument among the sons of men nay nor in the whole Creation shall nothing of the humane nature serve God or enjoy him On the other Justice pleaded That every one must have his due the wages of sin is death the Majesty of Heaven must not be offended nor his sacred Law violated without a just recompence Holiness which cannot but abhor sin could do no less than stand on the same side Truth remembred that that threatning moriendo morieris Thou shalt surely die was too sacred a thing to be made nothing of some way or other it ought to be satisfied Thus the Attributes themselves seem to be at a distance 3. Could a Ransom be found out to the content of Justice how should man depraved polluted man be made capable of receiving such a benefit who should unscale his eyes that he might look upon such a mystery who should break his iron-sinewed will that he might yield to such terms as Salvation was to be given upon It is certain that blind impenitent creatures cannot enter into Heaven before they can arrive thither their eyes must be opened upon the great Offer their hearts must be dissolved into the divine Will and how this shall come to pass is another difficulty Now after the difficulties let us see the admirable solution of them when all finite understandings were posed and nonplust at the case of fal'n man when neither men nor Angels could so much as start a thought touching a remedy infinite Wisdom found out a way of Salvation for us The incomparable contrivance was thus A creature a finite person could not satisfie Justice but an infinite one shall do it There are three persons in the sacred Trinity but the Son of God shall do it He shall assume an humane nature in it He shall obey and die upon a Cross and thereby he shall satisfie divine Justice and purchase Grace and Eternal life for us That the Son should do it rather than any other person was very congruous many ways Gods beloved One was fit to reconcile us his essential Image was fit to repair the gracious one none could be more meet to usher in Adoption than Gods natural Son nor to enlighten the World than the brightness of his glory the Eternal Word Incarnate must needs be an excellent Prophet the middle person in the sacred Trinity a most congruous Mediator The blessed Father shewed forth himself in a former work in Creation the holy Spirit appears in a subsequent work in Sanctification it was therefore very meet that the Son the second person in the Trinity should manifest himself in the middle work in Redemption But that we may look a little further into this admirable Design it will not be amiss to fix our eyes upon those rare Conjunctions which the divine Wisdom hath framed in order to our Salvation 1. There is a Conjunction of Natures God and Man in one person Jesus Christ who was consubstantial with the Father as to his Divinity was made consubstantial with us as to his Humanity Heaven and Earth were united together in an ineffable manner the distance between God and man was as it were filled up in this wonderful Incarnation supremum insimi did attingere infimum supremi the creature came as near God as possibly could be Admirable are the tendencies of this Union He was Man that he might be capable of suffering and that by suffering he might satisfie in the same Nature which had sinned He was God that he might stamp such an infinite value upon his sufferings that those though but the sufferings of one might answer for a World and though but temporal sufferings might counterpoise Eternal He was Man that in condescension to our weakness he might speak to us through a vail of flesh He was God that he might speak to our hearts in divine illuminations in words of life and power He was Man that he might be touch'd with a feeling of our infirmities and melt into tender compassions towards us He was God that he might break all the powers of darkness and erect an holy Throne in our hearts This was the first fundamental Conjunction a thing worthy to attract from us a much higher admiration than what is due to the Wonders in Nature 2. There is a Conjunction of Justice and Mercy These in men do usually like the Sun and Moon reign by turns but in this wonderful Dispensation these are in exercise and glory both at once Justice appears in that Jesus Christ our Sponsor was smitten and wounded to death and that an accursed one for our sins Mercy shines forth in that Sinners repenting and believing are spared nay and advanced to glory Justice did not spare the Surety but exacted all Mercy doth not exact ought from the believer but forgive all The sufferings of Christ respect both Attributes they satisfied the Law and founded the Gospel Justice had a full compensation and Mercy sprung up in promises of Grace and Life 3. Holiness in God which hates sin is the fundamental root of that Justice which punisheth it Punishment issues out of Justice Justice springs out of Holiness Now that Holiness may be contented and so Justice satisfied not only in it self but in its very foundation there was in Christs Sufferings a Conjunction of punishment and obedience It 's true the Socinians think these two altogether inconsistent Si Christi passiones rationem obedientia habent rationem poenae habere non possunt obedientia enim virtus est poena autem propter inobedientiam infligitur Schlict contr Meisn 128. because obedience is a Virtue but punishment is inflicted for disobedience But in Scripture the thing is clear there was a virtuous action in his Passion a signal obedience in his Sufferings he poured out his soul he was obedient unto death Pure entire obedience run through his whole life to the last gasp upon the Cross it was not at all broken or interrupted by the bloody Agony nor lost or forsaken in that night of desertion when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His Sufferings were very penal in themselves and inflicted by Justice yet freely undertaken and obedientially undergone Here therefore was an admirable work of Wisdom his Sufferings as penal satisfied Justice and as obediential gratified Holiness 4. The Truth of God was concerned in that first Threatning Thou shalt surely
present evil one The Philosophers with all their Arts and Eloquence could not decoy them from supernatural Mysteries or induce them to take up their repose in humane Learning or Wisdom The whole World was annihilated to them and they unto themselves they became fools that they might be wise and Nothing that God might be All the Ornaments and Self-excellencies were put off that they might be compleat in Christ They lay at Gods feet for Mercy and lived in a continual dependance upon the influences of his Spirit and Grace In such a work as this the Arm of God must needs be revealed in a very eminent manner Here we have just cause to say What hath God wrought The Divine Power will yet more appear if we look upon the instruments in this Work In making the World there were none at all no Leavers or Engines to rear up the great Fabrick An Almighty word absolved it in converting it instruments were used but such that by the no-proportion between them and the great effect it might appear that the Power was of God only He sent not the glorious Angels to Preach up a crucified Christ but Men. The treasure was in Earthen-vessels in poor frail Mortals who carried about bodies of Clay That the excellency of the power might be of God 2 Cor. 4.7 that it might be clearly seen that the great Work was Gods Among men he sent not the Anshe Shem Persons of Renown for Learning or Wisdom but mean illiterate men Hence the Apostle saith God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty 1 Cor. 1.27 that the Divine Power might appear in the Work These mean men preached not with excellency of speech or wisdom 1 Cor. 2.1 with the charms of Eloquence or the pomp of humane Wisdom but with plain words their Preaching was look't upon as foolishness That salvation should be by a crucified Christ seemed foolish that it should be communicated by Preaching Sclat in Pools Synop. seemed more foolish that it should be done by Preaching in a low simple plain manner seemed most foolish of all Yet in this way it was that Christ would ride conquering and to conquer the World to himself The great success of their Preaching was a signal proof that God was with them of a truth At Peters first Sermon three thousand souls were converted unto God Act. 2.41 and at his second they were encreased to five thousand Act. 4.4 multitudes of Believers came in to Christianity In a little time the Gospel was propagated over a great part of the World one Paul spread it from Jerusalem to Illyricum And what did all the rest of the Apostles who carried about this Evangelical light do What did the seventy Disciples do who as Ecclesiastical Writers say had their several Provinces to Preach the Gospel in The word did then run and was glorified it passed through many Countries with a Divine swiftness and success at the sound of the Gospel the World was spiritually turned upside down and of Pagan became Christian Tertullian enumerates divers Nations and at last adds touching us Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca Christo tamen subdita sunt the Evangelical Power entred there where the Roman could not By such weak means to produce so great an effect was a work worthy of Omnipotence Moreover the Divine Power will yet more appear if we consider the things proposed in the Gospel Narces the Roman-General discontented at the Empress Sophia to invite the Lombards into Italy sent them many sorts of excellent fruits from thence The Present being congruous to sense the project took effect The Gospel indeed proposes very excellent things to us But they are so great and so far above humane Nature that the proposal if not accompanied with a Divine Power would have been altogether ineffectual I shall instance in two or three things 1. It proposes super-rational Mysteries such as the Doctrine of the Sacred Trinity The Incarnation of the Son of God The Satisfaction made to Justice by his Blood These are objects of Faith and so depend one upon another that unless we believe the Trinity we cannot believe the Incarnation and unless we believe that we cannot believe a Satisfaction and without believing that we cannot fulfil the condition of the Gospel which requires us to rest upon Christ for salvation These therefore are necessary objects of Faith but without an Act of Divine Power Faith in these cannot be had Two things evidence this the one is ex parte objecti the things are above Reason As the things of Reason are above Sense so the things of Faith are above Reason without a Revelation Reason could not have found out these Mysteries after it Reason cannot comprehend them It may shadow them out by similitudes but there is in them a light unapproachable such as Reason cannot look into an infinite Abyss such as Reason cannot measure The other is ex parte subjecti man who is to believe these things is fallen and in his fall not one or two faculties fell but all of them and among the rest his intellectual and believing faculties fell also The intellect hath lost its subjection to God the Supreme Truth The believing faculty centers in the Creature and without the Power of Grace cannot lift up it self to supernatural Truths A Divine Power is requisite to captivate the understanding to the first Truth to elevate the believing faculty to super-rational Mysteries Hence in Scripture Faith is called the Gift and Work of God such an one as is the product of Divine Power it is wrought by Power Eph. 1.19 it is fulfilled and consummated by Power 1 Thes 1.11 it is stiled the spirit of faith 2 Cor. 4.13 It is not from our own spirit but Gods outwardly revealing the mysterious object in Scripture and inwardly inlightning and elevating the heart to entertain it Hence Fulgentius compares the production of Faith in the heart Carnem illam nec concipere Virgo posset nec parere nisi ejusdem carnis Spiritus Sanctus operaretur exortum in hominis corde nec concipi sides poterit nec augeri nisi eam Spiritus Sanctus infundat nutrint ex eodem Spiritu venati sumus ex spuo natus est Christus Fulg. de Incar cap. 20. with the conception of Christ in the Virgins Womb both are by one and the same Spirit Christ is no less formed in the heart by it than his flesh was in the Virgin It is therefore a work of Power to raise up the mind of man to believe those supernatural Mysteries which are far above it self 2. It proposes super-moral Virtues It would have us to be humble and deny our selves To sanctifie the Lord in our hearts To have a love for his Goodness a fear for his Majesty and Greatness a faith for his Truth and Mercy a sincerity for his all-seeing eye and such a posture of soul
sin and his Justice which punisheth it were both gratified to the full This Satisfaction as obediential pleased Gods Holiness as penal satisfied his Justice in both there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sweet-smelling savour unto God He was at least as highly if not more pleased in it as he was displeased at the sin of a world Thus there was as Providence would have it a very full and just compensation for sin and withal a redundancy of Merit to procure all good things for us 2. There was a great Providence over the fruit of his Satisfaction in raising up a Church to God The Son of God assuming our nature and in it making so glorious a satisfaction for us Providence would not I may say without disparagement to its own perfection could not suffer so great a thing to be vain or to no purpose no it therein aimed at a Church Two things will make this appear The one is the Promises of God He did not only say That Christ should be a light to the Gentiles and his salvation to the ends of the earth Isa 49.6 but in express terms That he should see his seed Isa 53.10 Which Promise having no other condition but his death only did thereby become absolute it was as sure as the Truth of God could make it that there should be a seed a progeny of believers And for the continuance of this seed successively remarkable is that promise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filiabitur nomen ejus His name shall be sonned or childed from generation to generation Psal 72.17 There shall from time to time be a company of believers coming forth as the genuine off-spring of Christ Thus run the Promises and if God take care of any thing he will take care to be true If Providence which without an aim is not it self aim at any thing in all the world it will aim at the performance of the Promises the keeping of Gods word being more precious to him than the preserving of a World The other thing to clear this point is the End of Christs death which is signally set down in Scripture Christ loved his church and gave himself for it that he might sauctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word Eph. 5.25 26. He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purisie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 He died that he might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad John 11.52 Here the end of his death is plainly expressed and if Providence did not aim at the same thing how should the wills of God and Christ stand in harmony whilst Providence neglects what Christ desigs Or how should Christ after so vast an expence as his own blood ever arrive at the intended end To arrive at that by Providence which Providence never aimed at was impossible to hit it by chance was uncertain and infinitely below such an Agent as Christ and such a work as his Satisfaction It was therefore the aim of Providence that there should be a Church Further Providence doth not only intentionally aim at it but actually procure it And here two things are to be noted 1. Providence directs the outward means of grace These which are things so great that the Kingdom of God is said to come nigh unto men in them go not forth by chance but by the Divine pleasure they are not hits of Fortune but blessings of Providence and that in a choice special manner Evangelical light doth not as the corporeal Sun shine every-where Supernatural dews do not as the common rain fall in every place Providence directs whither they shall go Hence the Apostles did not at least for some time let out their light or drop their heavenly Doctrine in Asia or Bithynia Act. 16.6 7 but pass into other parts Their Commission was general to preach to every creature but they followed the duct of Providence in the executing of it When Paul was at Corinth his stay there was proportioned to his work God had much people in that city Act. 18.10 There was a great draught of believers to be made therefore the Evangelical Net was long and after cast in that place as Providence would have it So the holy light was spread abroad in the World 2. Providence takes order that the Holy Spirit in the use of the means should so effectually operate as might infallibly secure a Church unto God Hence besides the light in the means there is an in-shining into the heart besides the outward hearing there is an hearing and learning of the Father Cathedram in coelo habet In Epist Joh. Tract 3. qui corda docet He hath a Chair of State in Heaven who teaches hearts saith St. Austin There is not only a proposal of objects but an infusion of principles to assimilate the heart thereunto The Gospel doth not come in word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 1.5 A Divine power opens the heart unlocks every faculty dissolves the stone which is in it imprints the Holy Law there and frames and new-moulds it into the image of God and thus there comes forth a Church of Believers or as the Apostle speaks a church of the first-born which are written in heaven Heb. 12.23 and all this is from the Providence and good pleasure of God Hence Saint Paul saith That they are called according to his purpose and grace 2 Tim. 1.9 Saint James saith That they are begotten of his own will James 1.18 Saint John saith That they are born not of the will of man but of God John 1.13 all is from the fo the good-will and pleasure of God This Providence which watches over the Church though it be a very signal one and next to that over Christ himself hath not wanted Adversaries Socinus saith That Christ the Head was predestinated but believers the Members were not Caput quidem certum esse debuit membra autem non modo incerta esse possunt sed etiam debent Praelect Theol. cap. 14. Corvinus saith That notwithstanding the death of Christ it was possible that there might be no Church or believer Grevinchovius asserts That Redemption might be impetrated for all and applied to none because of their incredulity This Opinion to me is a very impious one The Learned Junius observes upon that of Socinus Fieri potuisse ut nemo hominum in Christum crederet ac nulla esset Ecclesia Cor. contr Mol. That it is a portentous and monstrous thing that there should be an Head without a Body Omnibus potuit esse impetrata redemptio tamen nullis applicari propter incredulitatem Grevinch contr Ames And the Professors of Leyden * Censur fol. 289. call that of Corvinus Dogma 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an opprobrious and blasphemous Opinion The impiety of it appears in the foul consequences which flow from thence 1. It puts
the consequences of that opinion and too heavy I confess for me to stand under I rest therefore in that of the Apostle He hath called us not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace 2 Tim. 1.9 Here purpose and grace are joined together if his purpose be free if his grace be gratuitous then he calls as he pleases In calling men home to himself he acts purely totally from Grace I conclude with that of Bonaventure Hoc piarum mentium est ut nihil sibi tribuant sed totum Dei Gratiae The genius of pious minds is to attribute nothing to themselves but all to Grace Thus far touching the first thing The freeness of Grace The next thing proposed is the power and efficacy of Grace The Apostle speaks of an exceeding greatness of power towards those that believe Eph. 1.19 So emphatical are the words there cam oper sol 343. that Camero is bold to say Nemo cui non periit frons negare potest significare vim potentiam None who hath not lost his modesty can there deny a force and power signified Now touching the efficacy of Grace I shall consider three things 1. It s efficacy as to the Principle of Faith and other Graces 2. It s efficacy as to actual believing and willing 3. It s efficacy as to perseverance in the faith The first thing is its efficacy as to the Principle of Faith and other Graces By the Principle of Faith I mean not the natural power of believing God doth not command us to take down the Sun for which we have no faculties but to believe for which we have an understanding and a will no natural faculty is wanting De Praed c. 5. Hence St. Austin saith the posse of believing is of nature This power in faln man because in conjunction with natural impotency never arrives at the effect The natural faculties are by the fall so vitiated that though in a sense he can yet he will not believe Trahit sua quemque voluptas one lust or other so attracts him that he cannot a se impetrare ut velit he cannot find in his heart to do it He hath a kind of can in his natural faculties but the corruption blasts the effect Neither do I mean that power which as some Divines say is supernatural yet not an habit or vital principle of faith Nature being fallen Grace say they gives a second power to set the will in aequilibrio but that power doth not as an habit incline or dispose a man to actual believving This power as I take it is nothing but Nature and Free-will I see not how it should be distinct from it There are as the Learned Doctor Twiss hath observed three things in the soul that is Powers Habits and Passions Powers may be the subjects of Habits and Passions but may a Power be the subject of a Power A natural power of a supernatural one This looks like a Monster By the same reason Habits may be the subjects of Habits and Passions of Passions And is this power of believing free or not If free then it is not supernatural it may be a principle of not believing and that nothing supernatural can be If not free then it determines the event but to what To not believing then it is not supernatural To believing then all men having as these men say the power must infallibly believe which Scripture and experience deny I mean therefore such a Principle of Faith as is an habit and vital Principle such as is seminally and virtually faith such as hath the nature and essence of faith such as inclines and disposes to actual believing and before the act denominates a man a believer When the act of faith comes forth into being is it from a believer or from an unbeliever If from a believer then there was an habit of faith before If from an unbeliever how unnatural is it and how cross to the suavity of Providence There must then be an act of faith before a principle a fruit before a tree or seed What shall we say of such an one He is a believer in act but in principle none as soon as the act ceases he is not at all a believer There must therefore be an habit a vital principle of faith This in the use of means is infused or created and that by the power of grace To clear this I shall lay down two or three things 1. The Principle of Faith and other Graces is not produced by meer suasion by a meer proposal of the Evangelical object In conversion there is a great work wrought within the deadly wound of Original corruption must be healed the new creature must be set up in us and can suasion do this Such a glorious work must be done by an efficient cause not by a meer allicient one such as suasion is A natural man is blind nay dead in spiritual things and what suasion can make the blind to see or the dead to rise Suasion is so far from giving a faculty that it presupposes it The use of it is not to confer a power but to excite and stir it up into act Satan uses suasion to subvert the souls of men and doth God do no more to convert them unto himself How then should he ever gather a Church to himself Satans suasions run with the tide and stream of corrupt nature but Gods are against it and in all reason the balance will be cast rather on that side which hath Natures vote and free concurrence than on that which hath Natures repugnancy and contradiction In this work there is more than meer suasion God is not a meer Orator but an admirable Operator his word is not significative only but factive commanding those Divine Principles into being vox imperativa abit in operativam he calls for a new heart and it is so 2. This holy Principle is not produced by assistent Grace as if a natural man did by Divine assistance work it in himself The Principle or power of believing is either natural or supernatural if natural it is by creation if supernatural it is by infusion or inspiration neither way is it produced in a way of assistance An assistance is not accommodated to a thing to produce a new power but to bring forth an act from thence The light is assistent to the eye in the act of vision but it gives not the visive power to it assisting grace concurs to the act of believing but it confers not a believing principle The greatest Saint in the world stands in need of assisting grace that his gracious principles may come into actual exercise he must have help from the holy one a supply of the Spirit of Christ the Heavenly roots do not cast forth themselves unless God be as dew to them the sweet spices do not flow out actually unless God breath upon them by auxiliary grace still he wants assistance to the doing of good as
Grace that he doth so The willing and believing are voluntary acts in regard of mans will but acts of power in regard of Gods Spirit which touches and moves the heart thereunto It may be thought by some that there needs no expence of power towards willing and believing that a power of willing and believing is enough for us But should God give us only a power to will and believe and leave the rest to our will we have great reason to think that we should all do as innocent Adam did fall from God and never reduce that power into act The Divine Principles in Adam were pure and without mixture but the power of believing and willing in us hath in the same heart where it dwells an Inmate of corruption which continually counter-works it In innocency the temptation stood without a-courting the senses but after the fall it makes nearer approaches as having a party within ready to open and betray every faculty To me it looks like a proud thought for any to imagine that under such a disparity he could act his part better than Adam did If then the foundation of God must stand if the election must obtain if Christ must have a seed if the Spirit must have a temple it is no less than necessary that the power of Grace should secure that willing and believing without which those high and great designs of Heaven cannot take effect 3. There is an efficacy of Grace as to perseverance in Faith and Holiness Perseverance wherever it is is from Grace The inherent Graces in the Saints are but creatures no creature no not the most spiritual doth or can preserve it self All depend upon their Original in their being and duration hence as St. Jerom observes God is always a-working Ad Ctesiph cap. 3. always a-giving Non mihi sufficit saith he quod semel donavit nisi semper donaverit It is not enough for me that he once give unless he always do so Hence that of St. Austin Non ita se debet homo ad Dominum convertere ut cum ab eo fact us fuerit justus De Gen. ad Lit. lib. 8.12 abscedat sed it a ut ab illo semper siat Man ought not to convert to God that being made just he might depart from him but that he might be always made just by him The Physician heals and departs but God doth not do so he is still a-healing and new-making us by the continual spirations of his Spirit and Grace that we may persevere unto the end Were not perseverance from Grace there could be no such thing as a life of Faith it would be utterly needless to hang upon Promises or to look up for influences of Grace or with David to pray that God would keep the good frame in the heart or hold up our goings in his paths Perseverance being from our selves we may center and safely lye down there We may say as Laodicea We are rich and have need of nothing no not of God the Fountain of Grace We may do what St. Jerom charges on the Pelagians that is Ad Ctes cap. 3. bid God depart he is no more necessary to us It 's true he gave us a stock of power and free-will but now we can stand upon our own bottom all is in our own hand there is no room for a life of faith no nor for any true gratitude for our standing in Grace De Civ lib. 12. cap. 9. It is St. Austins observation That the Angels who stood were amplius adjuti more helped than those who fell therefore they cast down their Crowns before God ascribing their standing not to themselves but to Grace Should they do what they cannot do ascribe it to themselves they could not be thankful In like manner holy men who persevere attribute nothing to themselves but all to Grace Ad Ctes cap. 3 Quodcunque in suo rivulo fluit as St. Jerom speaks ad fontem refert Whatever flows in his rivulet he refers to the great fountain that he faulters and lapses is of his own that he stands and perseveres is of Grace Were it not so the praise and glory should be ascribed not to God but to our selves which would be to turn Gratitude into Presumption The Graces of the Saints may be considered in the act or in the habit The acts have their too frequent pauses and interruptions but the habit the vital principle is a seed of immortality and never dyes In the saddest falls of a Saint it may be said of him as it was of Eutychus His life is in him He that is born of God doth not commit sin nay he cannot sin 1 Joh. 3.9 Doubtless he can sin sins of infirmity nay and gross sins too as appears in the falls of David and Peter but he cannot sin so as totally to unframe the new-creature and lay himself in an unregenerate state This is clear by the reasons in the Text For his seed remaineth in him and he is born of God Could he by sin extinguish the very principles of Grace he might sin to all intents and purposes contrary to the express letter of the text nay and his seed might not remain and he might ceafe to be born of God contrary to the reasons in the text If the Divine seed and birth do not preserve him from regnant sin such as would overthrow him it preserves him from no sin at all the text and reason are altogether insignificant But if as the text and truth is it preserves him from regnant sin then the Divine Principles are not extinguished when he falls into sin The habits of Grace may be considered meerly in themselves or in their dependence In themselves they are but defectible creatures and might totally fail their being is not from themselves no more is their duration in their dependance they cannot possibly fail because they are supported by somewhat greater than themselves Remarkable is the difference between the case of Adam and that of believers in Adam one act of sin expelled perfect holiness so that upon the fall there was not left in him so much as the least relick of sanctity or spark of spiritual life he and after him all his posterity became spiritually dead in sin not in part only for then the new-creature should be new but in part but totally every thing in fallen man wants quickening But in believers not one not many sins are able to drive out the principles of Grace though those principles are imperfect in themselves and dwell together with much inherent corruption yet are they not driven out and the reason of this difference is Adam had the stock of holiness in his own hands but the graces of the believers depend upon somewhat greater than themselves Now touching this Dependence I shall lay down three or four things 1. The Graces of Saints depend upon Election though Election be in it self from all eternity yet it buds and blossoms in
thing of vast import and consequence therefore he would do it with the greatest strength of intention and affection David like he calls upon his Soul and all that is within him to intend the thing in hand but because when he hath done his utmost there will yet be many failures and infirmities the holy Man looks up to Mercy for a Pardon and offers up all his Duties in and through Jesus Christ the great Mediator In the Old Testament the holy Man prayed thus Remember O my God and spare me Neh. 13.22 Enter not into judgment with thy Servant Psal 143.2 If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquities who shall stand Psal 130.3 The sense of their many imperfections made them fly to a Mercy-seat In the New Testament we are expresly directed To do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Col. 3.17 To make our approaches to God in and through him Eph. 2.18 To offer up spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by him 1 Pet. 2.5 Every Duty must be tendred unto God in and through the Mediator therefore the holy Man doth not stand upon the Perfection of his Services but implore a Pardon of his Infirmities neither doth he tender his Services immediately unto God but he puts them into the hand of Christ that being perfumed and as it were glorified by his merits they might from thence ascend up before God and be graciously accepted by him Moreover because Ordinances are but Medium's and Chanels of Grace the Holy Man in the use of them lifts up his Eyes to God to have them filled with the Divine Spirit and Blessing a meer outward Sanctuary of Ordinances will not serve his turn he would see the Power and the Glory the goings of God in it He cannot live by Bread only not the Life of Nature by the Bread of Creatures only not the Life of Grace by the Bread of Ordinances only in both he waits for that word of Blessing which proceeds out of God's Mouth this is that which makes the Ordinance communicate Grace and Comfort to us When the Word is preached it is not enough to the holy Man to have the Sacred Truths outwardly proposed or to hear the voice of a Man teaching the same but his Heart and his Flesh cry out for the Living God Oh! that God would speak inwardly in words of Life and Power that deep and Divine impressions might be made upon the Heart to sanctify it by the Truth and to cast it more and more into the mould of the Divine Will Oh! that God would come and shine into the Heart that he would uncover the holy things and bring forth Evangelical Mysteries to the view that the Heart might be ravished in the sweet odours of Christ that the Promises might flow out as a Conduit of Celestial Wine and make the Soul taste some drops of the pure Rivers of pleasure which are above This is the desire and expectation of the holy Man in hearing in like manner in Prayer it is not enough to him to pour out words before God but he looks for the holy Spirit to help his Infirmities and breath upon his Devotions that as Christ pleads above by his Merits and Sweet-smelling Sacrifice so the Holy Spirit may plead in the Heart with sighs and groans that cannot be uttered being conscious to himself what a thing his Heart is how much coldness hardness straitness is yet remaining there he waits for the Spirit to be as fire from Heaven to inflame the Heart and make it ascend up unto God to melt it and make it open and expand towards Heaven to set it a running in Spiritual fluency and enlargements towards God The holy Man esteems all to be lost and to no purpose unless he can have some converse and communion with God in every ordinance his Heart and the Ordinance have both the same scope and tendency that there may be a Divine intercourse between God and him God draws and he runs Cant. 1.4 God saith Seek ye my Face And the Soul answers Thy Face Lord will I seek Psal 27.8 There are Divine Influences and Spirations on God's part and there are compliances and responses in the holy Heart in Prayer it burns and aspires after him who set it a fire by the communications of his Grace and Love in Praise it carries back the received Blessings and lays them down at the feet of the great Donor in the hearing of the Word it hath something or other to answer to every part it trembles at the threatning it leaps up and in triumphs of Faith embraces the Promise it complies with the pure Command in holy Love and Obedience without this Communion in which God and Man spiritually meet together the holy Man looks on Ordinances but as dry empty things void of Life and separate from their chief end but if the holy Spirit breath upon the Heart and that breath out it self to God if the Soul set it self to seek God's Face and that irradiate the Duty then the Ordinance is full of Life and reaches its end The holy Man then perceives that God is in it of a truth hence one as Bellarmine relates used to rise from Duty with these words Claudimini oculi mei claudimini nihil enim pulchrius jà m videbitis Be shut O my Eyes be shut for I shall never behold a fairer object than God's Face which I have now beheld Take him in Alms and Charity he is holy there he knows that he was born nay and by a Divine Generation born again that he might do good It was a notable Speech of the Philosoper The Beasts Plants Sun Stars were designed for some work or other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what are you for When he thinks that he is a Man a rational Creature and which is more a new Creature and by Adoption one of the Seed Royal of Heaven he sees a necessity laid upon him to be fruitful in Charity and Good Works If he who hath a first and a second Birth who hath the good things of Nature and Grace do not do good who shall do it or where may it be expected The holy Man therefore sets himself to do good he doth not only do the outward work of Charity but he doth it readily and freely when an object of Charity meets him he doth not say Go and come again when he himself goes to the Mercy-seat he would not have God delay or turn him off after that manner Neither will he do so to his poor Brother not only the command of God but the taste that he hath of the Divine Grace make him ready and free in good Works his Good Works have not only a Body but there is a free Spirit in them and as the thing given supplies the Receiver's want so the manner of giving revives his Spirit The holy Man doth not only give Alms but he doth it out of Love and Compassion Beneficentiâ ex Benevolentiâ manare debet he doth good out of
all the creatures came out of nothing and between that and Being is a very vast gulf It was an infinite Power which filled it up and fetched over the creatures into Being it was an Almighty Word which made the creatures at an infinite distance hear and rise up out of nothing The old Axiom Ex nihilo nihil sit is Natures limit and a true measure of finite powers but when as in the Creation Nature overflows the banks when Nullity it self springs up and runs over into a World we are sure that the moving Power was an Infinite one And as infinite Power appears in the being of the creatures so doth infinite Wisdom in their orders and harmonies The curious Idea's and Congruities which before were latent in the divine breast are limned out upon outward and sensible things standing in delicate order and proportion before our eyes The World is a System of contraries made up into one body in which disagreeing natures conspire together for the common good each creature keeps its station and all the parts of Nature hang one upon another in a sweet confederacy Meer natural Agents operate towards their ends as if they were Masters of Reason and hit their proper mark as if they had a providence within them Such things as these teach us to conclude with Zeno that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason is the Great Artist which made all and to break out with the Psalmist O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all And as the two former Attributes shew forth themselves in the creatures so also doth infinite Goodness all the drops and measures of goodness in the creature lead us to that infinite Goodness which is the Fountain and Spring of all Pherecydes the Philosopher said That Jupiter first transformed himself into Love and then made the World he who is essential Love so framed it that Goodness appears every-where it shines in the Sun breathes in the Air flows in the Sea and springs in the Earth it is Reason in Men sense in Brutes life in Plants and more than meer Being in the least particles of matter The Manichees who would have had their Name from pouring out of Manna did brook their true name from Mania that is Madness in denying so excellent a World to be from the good God The light in their Eyes breath in their Nostrils bread in their Mouths and all the good creatures round about them were pregnant refutations of their sensless Heresy the prints of goodness everywhere extant in Nature shew the good hand which framed all In the making of Man in his original integrity there was yet a greater manifestation In other creatures there were the footsteps of God but in Man there was his Image a natural Image in the very make of his Soul in the essential faculties of Reason and Will upon which were derived more noble and divine prints of a Deity than upon all the World besides And in that natural Image there was seated a moral one standing in that perfect knowledg and righteousness in which more of the beauty and glory of God did shine forth than in the very essence of the Soul it self His Mind was a pure Lamp of Knowledg without any mists or dark shades about it his Will a mirrour of Sanctity and rectitude without any spot in it and as an accession to the two former images there was an image of Gods Soveraignty in him he was made Lord over the brutal World without the beasts were in perfect subjection to him and within the affections Now to such an excellent creature in his primitive glory with a Reason in its just 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full stature the World was a very rare Spectacle the stamps and signatures upon the creatures looked very fresh to his pure Paradisical eyes from within and from without he was filled with illustrious rays of a Deity he saw God everywhere within in the frame and divine furniture of his Soul and without in the creatures and the impresses of goodness on them he heard God every-where in his own breast in the voice of a clear unvailed Reason and abroad in the high language and dialect of Nature All was in splendor the World shone as an outward Temple and his heart was in lustre like an Oracle or inward Sanctuary every thing in both spake to Gods honour Such an excellent appearance as this was worthy of a Sabbath to celebrate the praises of the Creator in But alas Sin soon entred and cast a vail upon this Manifestation on the World there fell a curse which pressed it into groans and travelling pains of vanity the Earth had its Thistles the Heavens their spots and malignant influences all was out of tune and jarring into confusion In Man all the Images of God more or less suffered the orient Reason was miserably clouded the holy Rectitude utterly lost without the beasts turned rebels and within the affections Nevertheless God who is unwearied in Goodness would further manifest himself Promises of the Messiah and of grace in him brake forth unto lapsed man and as appendants thereof there came forth Sacrifices and other types to be figures of heavenly things and a kind of Astrolabe to the pious Jews that by earthly things they might ascend unto Celestial Also the Moral Law was given forth by God the spiritual Tables being broken material ones were made Holiness and Righteousness being by the fall driven out of their proper place the heart of man were set forth in letters and words in the Decalogue This was so glorious a manifestation that the Rabbins say that Mountains of sense hang upon every Iota of it The Psalmist in the 19th Psalm having set forth how the Sun and Heavens shew forth Gods glory raises up his discourse to the perfect Law which as it enlightens the inward man is a brighter luminary than the Sun which shines to sense and as it comprizes all duties within it self is a nobler circle in Morality than the Heavens which inviron all other bodies are in Nature The Commandment saith the Psalmist is exceeding broad Psalm 119.96 it is an Ocean of Sanctity and Equity such as humane Reason the soul and measure of civil Laws cannot search to the bottom Love to God and our Neighbour is the center of it and as many right lines as may be drawn thither so many are the duties of it Whatsoever it be that makes up the just posture of man towards his Maker or fellow-creatures is required therein Humane Laws are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 movable orders such as turn about with time but the Moral Law is by its intrinsecal rectitude so immortalized that as long as God is God and man man it cannot be altered After all these Manifestations God revealed himself to the World in and by Jesus Christ this is the last and greatest appearance of all In the inferiour creatures there is a footstep of God but not his Image
swallowed up in weakness Let him come down from the Cross and we will believe him Matth. 27.42 as if without a fresh Miracle all his holy Doctrines would vanish into nothing The Jews who were for Signs stumbled and fell in the midst of those glorious Miracles which he wrought among them The Greeks who were for Wisdom saw nothing but foolishness in the midst of the divine Mysteries which he brought down out of his Fathers Bosom A crucified Christ look'd like a spectacle of weakness and folly But here the divine Wisdom appears in that as the Apostle hath it The foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God stronger than men This crucified Christ shall attract a Church out of the corrupt Mass of mankind the foolishness of Preaching shall do it The Plato's or Aristotles of the World shall not be employed in the work no there shall be only Piscatoria simplicitas a few Fishermen shall catch men and draw them home unto God to the effectually called this despised Christ shall be the power and wisdom of God The divine Spirit merited by him shall endue them with a wisdom much higher than that of Nature and Philosophy and cloathe them with a power to make them live above all the hopes and fears of this World Death the last Enemy which had devoured so much humane flesh did not spare that Sacred portion which was assumed into the Son of God but in his death Death it self was swallowed up in Victory It passes indeed upon all men but when it comes to a Believer it lays by its sting and becomes only a passage into life Eternal To conclude In all these Conquests we may see one Contrary brought out of another Life out of Death Power out of Weakness a Blessing out of a Curse and a Victory out of Sufferings which speaks no less than an admirable contrivance therein These appearances of Divine Wisdom naturally teach us humility of mind Humane Reason is indeed in its own Orb an excellent Light but a greater than it the Reason of God himself comes forth to us in supernatural Mysteries to make us sit down at his feet for Instruction Nothing can be more just and purely rational than for our Intellect being finite to be subject to the infinite Truth and being lighted up by God to do homage to its great Original It 's true ever since man tasted of the Tree of Knowledg his Reason hath had a malignant pride in it of a Minister it would be a Lord over our Faith assuming the Magisterial Chair it would fall a-judging Divine Mysteries it would comprehensively span them within it self and what could not be so comprized it would out of enmity cast away as spurious This in the issue hath so far as it hath prevailed desperately overturned all Faith in the act and in the object in the act for to believe a thing because I can comprehend it is not faith in God but trusting in my own heart not a sealing to his Veracity but a subscribing to my own Sagacity Hence the learned Maresius saith of the Socinians That they have manus oculatas hands with eyes in them that only do they believe which they see they will trust God no further than they see him Also in the Object this hath been very subversive to the Gospel In the Pagan Philosophers whose Motto was Soli rationi cedo it cast away Christ crucified as foolishness and the Gospel as an absurd Fable it reflected on Christians as meer Simpletons men of an easie and irrational faith hence that jeer of Cato Stultitia est morte alterius sperare salutem it 's folly to hope for salvation in the death of another In the Socinians whose Rule is Nihil credi potest quod a ratione nequeat capi nothing can be believed which cannot be comprehended by Reason it hath blown up the fundamental Articles of Christianity the sacred Trinity to them is a contradiction the Hypostatical Union an irrational repugnancy the Satisfaction of Christ a contumely to Gods grace and in all this they do but build a Tower a Name to their own Reason and as a just punishment in the doing of it they fall into confusion and inconsistencies Mar. Hydra Tom. 2.460 Sometimes they make the Law to exact a more perfect obedience than the Gospel Sometimes the Gospel to call for a more accurate righteousness than the Law To evert Satisfaction they lift up Grace but to elevate Free-will they depress it They own a God yet deny his Prescience they say Christ is but a creature yet they worship him Thus that great thing Reason falling from the supreme Truth becomes a forlorn spectacle of vanity In a kind of self-splendor it goes out in the darkness of errour and confusion But now to humble our minds it is of excellent use to consider the divine Wisdom which is so much above us When our Reason stands by sense it hath a noble stature and greatness but as soon as it turns about to infinite Wisdom it perceives a greater Presence than it self and must in all reason confess it self a little spark a very Nothing in comparison It cannot step out into the sphere of Nature but it finds matter of humility being true to it self it can do no less than say that it is everywhere posed and nonplust It is not able rationally to stand under the secrets of Nature much more must it stoop and do reverence before such a Mystery as that is God manifest in the flesh in which the transcendent Mystery amazes us and the unparallel'd Pattern draws us into humility Thither must we come or else turn Infidels and allow Reason for a Deity saying with Seneca Quid aliud voces animam quà m Deum in humano corpore hospitantem What is the rational Soul but God dwelling in flesh a kind of Christ or rather Antichrist This I am sure Christian ears cannot bear But a little more to demonstrate how necessary a thing humility of mind is let us consider Reason in a three-fold state then it will appear that Reason in its Integrity could not find out supernatural Mysteries in its Fall cannot spiritually know them and lastly in the irradiations of Faith cannot comprehend them 1. Reason in its Integrity could not find them out The pure primitive light in Adam could dive into the secrets of Nature but it could not reach such a Mysterie as that of the sacred Trinity which is the fundamental center of Christian Religion He could name the creatures and that significantly to their natures but that Question What is his sons name Prov. 30.4 would have been too hard for him There are say the School-men some obscure Images of the Trinity in the Volume of Nature but they were found out à posteriori and not to be read till after Revelation and how should humane Reason dictate in those things which it could not find out or know any thing from it self when it hath
way into the Holy of Holies into the Glory and Immortality there Notwithstanding all this without Repenting there is nothing but perishing without Holiness there is no seeing of God A life after the flesh must end in death The divine Justice and Law which was fully satisfied in Christ will seize upon rebellious sinners and ask a second Satisfaction as if there had been none before the divine hatred of sin which was so signally evident in the sufferings of Christ will appear again in their utter ruin and destruction Things are so knit together that Holiness must be necessary to make us happy Christ is a Saviour and a Lord too where he saves from Hell there he rules in the pure ways towards Heaven His blood and Spirit are ever in Conjunction if the one deliver from Guilt and Wrath the other subdues sin and implants Holiness Promises and Precepts which are intermixed in the Word must be both taken together into the heart where the latter hath not obedience the former can minister no comfort True Faith receives an entire Christ as it rests upon his Merits and Righteousness so it subjects to his Spirit and Word in all things That hope of Heaven which purifies not is indeed a Prefumption and not an Hope a Cobweb hanging in a vain heart and not an Anchor sure and stedfast entring into that within the Vail God out of love to Holiness hath linked it in with Christ Promises Faith Heaven and Salvation that no man can or may enjoy the one without the other till Christ can be divided his Sacrifice from his Scepter till Promises can be rent off from the holy Precepts to which they are annexed till a vital Faith can cease to do its function in acts of obedience till the holy Heavens can admit an unclean thing into them till then an unholy person cannot arrive at Happiness In all this we see how high a respect God hath for Holiness Now what remains but that Christians who have this glorious Attribute set before them should bethink themselves what manner of persons they ought to be God acts like himself Should not they do so their decorum stands in an holy Assimilation to him Christianity is as an Ancient hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a likeness to God to be after him in his imitable Perfections to be loving merciful holy patient as He is is to be and act like themselves One Virtue of God or other should be still breaking forth from them to tell the World that they are Christians Their finite love and mercy to fellow-creatures should speak their sense of that infinite love and mercy which they have tasted of Their patience under injuries should carry a resemblance of those Riches of goodness and forbearance which God hath spent upon themselves All their holy Graces should appear as so many Rays and little Images of Him who is the great Fountain and pattern of Holiness For them to walk worthy of God and in imitation of him is to walk condecently to themselves and in correspondence to Christianity Again God doth all things for Himself his own Glory and this must be the aim of Christians To be a Center to themselves they must not do it an higher and nobler End than God himself cannot be It is naturally just that He who is the first Principle of all things should be the last End That Axiom That God in all things must be glorified is fundamental Divinity that is the very thing which they must look to as their ultimate scope They should put away the by-glances at Self and the unbecoming Squints at base and false Ends that they may have a single Eye and a pure Intention to the true and great End of all things This is the very life and marrow of Religion it sanctifies holy Duties it spiritualizes civil and natural Actions it elevates the life unto the great Center of all things and by consecrating the Actions unto God gives them a kind of Immortality It transforms the Soul into a deiformity or divine Nature that it becomes one spirit with the Lord and falls in with the same Will and End with him If we will be like Christians the frame of our heart must be above the interests of flesh and self All those things which are off from the true End and Center must be in our eyes as so many impertinent follies the whole of our hearts and lives must be under a consecration to that Eternal Design The Glory of God blessed for ever Moreover God hath an hatred of sin and a love of Holiness and what is the work of Christians but to follow him Sin is so vile an evil that it cannot but be worthy of hatred To the holy God and his Attributes it is meer enmity and rebellion to the World it is a Gurse a blast of Vanity to the Soul an Ataxy turpitude and corruption to the Lord Christ as Nails a bloody Cross and Cup of Wrath. A horrible evil it is and to be hated accordingly a meer evil without mixture of good and to be hated with a pure hatred without mixture of Love An All-evil opposite to God the All-goodness and to be hated with all-hatred not a drop or degree of hatred should be let out upon any thing else All of it in the most intense degree and measure should be poured out upon it in what place or time soever it be still it is evil and upon that account to be hated perpetually and in all places And indeed if we do bethink our selves the groans of the poor creatures which are constant and everywhere round about us do very strongly move us hereunto the blots and turpitudes upon our own Souls tell us that we must hate it as much as we love the beauty and glory of our immortal Spirits The bloud and wounds of our dear Saviour cry out for Justice and Vengeance to be executed upon it And if we have any love for him we must crucifie it and cast it away as an accursed thing On the other hand Holiness cannot but be a fit Object for our love It is a pure thing let down from Heaven and if our love be there it can do no less than embrace so divine an off-spring as that is It is the very rectitude and true temper of Souls that which sets them in a right posture towards God and all holy things and for that reason more love is to be set upon it than that which is due to our own Souls Though in man it be but a little Ray or spark yet because of its divine Nature it doth in little resemble him who is all Holiness and Purity and upon that account our love which in its highest measures ascends up to Him must in proportion be due to it The amiableness of it in the Letter made the Holy man cry out Oh how I love thy Law Psalm 119.97 and how illustrious and attractive must it be when it is in its proper
Vbi living and breathing in the spirits of men Rather than it should not revive there God would be manifest in the flesh and die in it And how should we die to our selves and the World that it may live in us Which when it doth we live indeed and that a life more divine and of higher Excellency than is the life of meer Sense or Reason nay this life is complicated with Happiness and makes us meet for life Eternal If we would live for ever in Bliss and Glory we must follow after Holiness heart and life must be consecrated unto God else Heaven will not be capable to receive us nor shall we be fit to enter in there CHAP. IV. Chap. 4 Gods Punitive Justice asserted from Scripture and Nature It was necessary that there should be a Satisfaction for Sin Rectoral Justice required it Vnless Christs Sufferings were satisfactory no good account can be given of them It 's not enough to say That he was an Example of Patience That he confirmed the Covenant That Gods immense Love was manifested therein or that his Resurrection assured ours Gods Justice appears in that He though of infinite Mercy inflicted those Sufferings on Christ In that Christ the Patient was Man the Son of God an holy Innocent One In that the Sufferings of Christ were proportionable to the sinning-powers in Man To the Law To the sin and sufferings of a World The fruits of his Sufferings as to Himself and as to Vs The Dreadfulness of sin in respect of the Sufferings of Christ and the miserable end of impenitent Sinners HAVING discoursed of Gods Holiness I now come to his Vindictive Justice which as a learned man saith is a Branch or Emanation from the other That pure Essence which cannot but hate sin Justitia vindicatrix in Deo sanctitatis summae rectitudinis pars quaedam est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Turret de satisfact must needs have a propensity to punish it That propensity cannot be separated from the hatred of sin nor that hatred from infinite Rectitude The Socinians that they might raze Christs Satisfaction to the very foundation deny this Attribute This Justice say they is not an Attribute in God Neither is it called Justice in Scripture but rather Severity which is not resident in God but only an effect of his Will But that there is such an Attribute in God is evident in Scripture He is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Right and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Righteous As the first chiefly respects his Universal Righteousness so the second doth his Judicial one He is said to be just in his judging Revel 16.5 His judgment is a righteous judgment Rom. 2.5 It is a righteous thing with him to render tribulation 2 Thess 1.6 Punishment is called a just Recompence Heb. 2.2 Punishment how afflictive soever cannot be Punishment unless Justice be declared in it nor can Justice be declared in that which it requires not The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes denotes the Punishment Jude v. 7. Sometimes the Punitive Justice it self Acts 28.4 One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from another just Punishment issues out from Vindictive Justice with respect to that only it is that God is called a consuming fire Heb. 12.29 As he is Light in his Essential Purity so he is Fire in his Essential Justice which is ever in Conjunction with his Purity and as it were the ardour of it breaking out in flames of Wrath in such sort as seems fit to him Thus Scripture But further Nature concurs to make it good This that God is Just is graven in the minds of all men The very Heathens by the indelible Characters which they find there are able to read the Judgment of God and say that he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an avenging Eye a Ray of it shines in their own bosom The Barbarians upon the sight of the Viper on Pauls hand cry out of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Vengeance that pursued him as a Murderer The very instinct of Nature told them that there was a Connexion between Guilt and Punishment Conscience is Dei vicarius a kind of Representative Numen in men it hath a secret Tribunal in the Heart and from that Seal and impress which divine Justice hath set upon it dooms and judges Offenders unto misery Hence that saying Prima est haec ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur Punishment is coetaneous to Guilt Sin in its egress out of the heart leaves a sting behind The Offender cannot be well within his distemper is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conscience of his evil-deeds his mind reflects torment upon it self inwardly he is nothing but Wounds and amazing Horrors the Apparitions of Wrath haunt him Conscience is sensus praejudicium judicii divini a kind of anticipation and presensation of the last Judgment After all this to deny God to be just is to offer violence to the Principles of Nature and put a lye upon those Notions which are born with and instamped-upon our Reason It is to say That the Image and Impress of a Deity upon our hearts is but a Counterfeit That Conscience is but a Cheat and all the Terrors there but a false Alarm In a word It is to eradicate all Religion and open a Flood-gate to all wickedness and impiety These being intolerable absurdities it cannot but be granted that there is such an Attribute in God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plutarch Justice follows God or rather it is his very Essence It is an enquiry among Divines How far it was necessary that sin should be punished that without Satisfaction there should be no Remission It is an indubitable Verity That it was necessary by virtue of Gods Decree He hath declared himself that he will by no means acquit the guilty But this is not all In Scripture Punishment is not attributed meerly to his Will or Decree but to his just and righteous Nature Thou art righteous O Lord because thou hast judged thus Revel 16.5 Though the mode and circumstance of Punishment be determined by his Soveraign pleasure yet the punishment it self issues out from his Justice Sin merits punishment They that do such things are worthy of death Rom. 1.32 It is not meerly Gods Will but his Justice which renders unto sin its due The proportion which is between Sin and Punishment shews who holds the ballance Were it meerly at the divine Pleasure to punish sin or not God need not punish obstinate and impenitent persons This the Socinians themselves cannot bear They say There is one Justice in God unaâ—est justitia Dei quâ perpetuo utitur dum scelestos contumaces ac perditae spei homines plectit atque exterminat Soc. de Serv. pars prima cap. 1. Indignum Deo est eorum scelera impunè dimittere Crell de Deo Attr. cap. 23. which he ever useth in punishing contumacious sinners nay it would be unworthy of
a strong Motive to Repentance enough if duly considered to set all men a weeping over their iniquities What did the Creator suffer Was the Lord of Glory crucified Was the blessed One made a Curse Did the Son of God very God so dear so great a person sweat bleed cry out and expire upon a tormenting Cross and all this to take away sin What a spectacle is this Who can look upon it with dry eyes or an unmelting heart When the Son of God was broken should our hearts be untouched May we spare our tears when he parted with his blood To look upon his wounds and not mourn over our sins can be no less than unnatural hardness Oh! what a thing is sin how horrible how infinite an evil that it could not be expiated at an easier rate than the blood of God himself What Plea can be made or colour given for so vile a thing that it should have a Being in the world or so much as a residence in an humane Thought Should that be indulged which cost Jesus Christ so dear or that go free which nailed him to the Cross Canst thou love that which stabbed him at the heart or live in that for which he dyed May that be light which pressed him into an agony and bloody-sweat or that sweet which put so much Gall and Vinegar into his Cup Canst thou bless thy self in that which made him a Curse or follow after that which made him cry out of forsaking Think and again think if thy blind eyes and hard heart will let thee what and how dreadful a thing it is for thee to go on in thine iniquities In so doing thou dost not meerly run upon the Authority and Soveraignty of the Almighty but upon the wounds and blood of thy dear Saviour impiously trampling them under thy impure feet and how grievous a thing is this If thou art fearless and stoppest not here what hope canst thou have It becomes thee to sit down and lament that hellish impetus in thy own heart which moves swiftly towards Hell without admitting any remora A few words from God gave check to Abimelech Gen. 20. And shall not the wounds and blood of thy dear Lord do as much to thee The sword of an Angel put a stop to Balaam in his perverse way Numb 22. And wilt thou go on who hast seen the sword of God drawn against the Man his fellow for thine iniquities If the groans of the Creatures all round about sounding in thine ears did not startle thee yet shouldest thou be deaf and sensless to the Sufferings of thy Saviour bleeding and dying upon a Cross in comparison of which the dashing down of a world is a poor nothing If the breaches of the Sacred Law dearer to God than Heaven and Earth do not move thee yet wilt thou not be moved when thou seest that amazing sight God for our sins bruising and breaking his Son his essential Image in our assumed Nature If thou dost not blush at the blots and turpitudes which sin hath made in thy own soul yet methinks it should deeply affect thee that the Son of God was made sin and a Curse for thee Should God let thee down to Hell and after some scorches from the fire unquenchable take thee up again wouldest thou yet go on in sin no surely and why wilt thou do it now after thou hast seen such a spectacle of Justice in the Lord Jesus as more than countervails the Sufferings of a world When a Temptation approaches How is it that thou seest not the price of blood writ upon it Which way dost thou forget the nails and bloody Cross of thy Redeemer Thou seest plainly that God is ae just a righteous One and for a full proof of it he hath written Justice in red Letters in the Passion of his own Son if thou run on in thy sins how which way canst thou escape God spared not his own Son standing in our room and will he spare thee in thy impenitent sinning Wrath fell very severely upon the Holy Innocent meek Lamb of God and will it pass over thee wallowing in thy filthy lusts and corruptions What did God exact so great a Satisfaction for sin that it might be allowed Did he vindicate his broken Law at so high a rate that it might be more broken and that with Impunity 'T is utterly impossible those Sufferings of Christ which did witness Gods hatred of Sin could not open a gap to it the Surety did not sweat pray bleed and dye under Wrath that the impenitent sinner might be spared O how profane and blasphemous is such a thought which makes the great Redeemer a Patron of iniquity He came to save us from our sins not in them to redeem from iniquity not to encourage it What then where is thy hope O impenitent sinner Is it in Gods Mercy As infinite as it is it will not let out a drop to the impenitent neither indeed can it do so unless which is impossible one Attribute can cross another Mercy can reproach Holiness or Justice Believe it Salvation it self cannot save thee in thy sins Is it in Christ and his Merits He is the Saviour of the Body but thou art out of it He is the Author of eternal Salvation to them that obey him but thou art a Rebel May Christ be divided Canst thou have a part in his Priestly office who art in Arms daily against his Kingly Shall the Promises comfort thee who castest off the Righteous Commands It cannot be What Concord hath Christ with Belial How ill-suited are an hard heart and a bleeding Saviour How canst thou trust in that Jesus whom thou despisest and crucifiest afresh by thy Rebellions or depend on his Merits when thou livest in enmity against his Divine Spirit and Life These are meer inconsistencies Thy case while thou art in thy sins is very forlorn and desperate God will be a consuming fire to thee thy self must be as dry stubble before him every lust will be a never-dying worm thy soul will furiously reflect upon it self for its prodigious folly abused Mercy will turn into fury Christ the great Saviour will doom thee to perdition fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest will be rained down upon thee and that for ever If then thou hast any fear of God or love to thy self cast away thy transgressions and return to him that thou mayest escape the Wrath to come and enjoy the pure beatitudes which are in Heaven CHAP. V. Chap. 5 Gods Love and Mercy manifested in that he stood not upon the old terms as he might and in giving his Son for us The Socinian objection That if God loved us he was not angry answered The earliness and freeness of Gods Love in giving his Son The greatness of the Gift The manner how he was given The persons for whom The evils removed and the good procured by it The excellent Evangelical terms built upon it These are easie and sure The
of God which as it is the highest suavity in it self so it pours out a delicious relish into all outward things Spirituals were so those initial Graces of Faith and Repentance which introduce us into an Union with Christ are from him He is a Prince and Saviour to give repentance Acts 5.31 To you it is given in the behalf of Christ to believe on him Phil. 1.29 As soon as we repent and believe we are justified in his blood and by a conjunction with him the natural Son we have power and right to become the Sons of God by Adoption and Grace The Holy Spirit the fountain of Graces and Comforts which was upon him the head above measure will fall down upon us his Members in a proportion every Grace every piece of the glorious new-creature is created in him In the power of his Merits and Spirit every comfort every beam of Divine Favour comes down to us through him He is the true Mercy-seat where God meets and communes in words of Grace with us Eternals were so too all the weights of Glory and Crowns of life in Heaven were purchased by him His blood opens the Holy of Holies the pure River of life springs out of his Merits the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Rom. 6.28 Had it not been for him we could never have entred into such a blessed Region as Heaven What a Gift is Christ which virtually contains all gifts and good things in him How incomparable that Love which gave us so comprehensive a Gift In the last place let us consider the excellent Evangelical Terms which were founded on the Death of Christ Here two things are considerable The one is this The terms are easier The Covenant of Works was Do this and live The Covenant of Grace is Believe repent and live The first called for pure sinless perfect obedience The last stoops and condescends to fallen man it accepts of sincere though imperfect obedience uprightness passes for perfection the main of the heart for all of it the will is accepted for the work pure aims are taken for compleat performances infirmities are covered with indulgence duties are taken into the hand of a Mediator and perfumed with his infinite Merits and hence they are acceptable and as sweet Odours to God O how low doth infinite Love and Mercy stoop to poor sinners It will save a repenting believing sinner and how can it possibly go lower That God should justifie an impenitent unbelieving sinner is utterly impossible to his Holiness unless he would open a gap to all sin and wickedness and make it capable to have a Crown of happiness at last He could not more condescend than he hath done in the terms of the Gospel there is a Kingdom for the poor in spirit a Comfort for the mourners an acceptance for a willing mind a favourable respect for the least spark of grace which is latent in a desire and but as a little smoke or wiek in the socket as the expression is Matth. 12.20 And what condescending Love is here How could God stoop lower for the Salvation of Men The other is this The terms are surer It 's true Adam had he stood in Righteousness would have had a reward But the difference is this Under the first Covenant it was not certain that Adam though he had sufficient grace should stand but under the second it is as sure as Gods Truth and Faithfulness in the promise can make it that a people shall be gathered up out of the corrupt Mass of mankind that Christ shall have a repenting believing seed and that they shall abide and persevere till they come to the recompence of reward in Heaven St. Austin distinguishes of a double adjutorium gratiae De Corrept Grat. cap. 12. or help of grace Adam had that grace without which he could not have obeyed Gods People have that which causes them to obey The first gave him a posse a power to obey and persevere The second gives us the very velle perficere the very willing and working with perseverance Hereupon he observes that Adams will though sound and without spot did not persevere in an ampler good whilest our will though weak and infected with indwelling Corruption doth persevere in a lesser Adam with all his Holiness fell before an Apple a little titillation of pleasure but the Christian Martyrs have stood it out notwithstanding the reliques of sin in them against racks and torments Under the first Covenant the stock of Grace was in Mans own hand the stress lay upon his Will the principle of Holiness in him was subjected to it to be continued or forfeited But under the second Covenant which was founded at so vast an expence as the Blood of God Mans Will is not made Trustee a second time the stock is not in his own hand Grace is a Victor and subdues the Will unto it self Hence this Covenant cannot as the other did miscarry God was a friend to innocent Adam but in the second Covenant God comes nearer to us in a double Union such as Adam never dreamt of There is an Hypostatical Union the Son of God taking our nature into himself and which is founded thereon a Mystical Union Believers being in a wonderful manner united unto Christ as members unto their head In the first Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ there is one Person In the second Christ and Believers make one Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 Believers are but Christ displayed he lives in them he counts himself incomplete without them By virtue of these two Unions it is that Believers finally persevere Because I live saith Christ ye shall live also John 14.19 Their life is bound up in his as long as Christ the head is alive above the believing Members below shall not fail of quickning grace to maintain spiritual life unto eternal The Holy Spirit is in them a well of water springing up to everlasting life John 4.14 and to secure the abode of the Spirit with them Christ is a Priest after the power of an endless life Heb. 7.16 In the Covenant of Works there was no promise of perseverance but in the Covenant of Grace there are many such promises God shall confirm you unto the end 1 Cor. 1.8 He will put his fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from him Jer. 32.40 The Apostle praying for the Thessalonians that they may be preserved blameless unto the coming of Christ immediately adds Faithful is he that called you who also will do it 1 Thes 5.23 24 evidently God undertakes it and engages his Faithfulness in it To take these Promises conditionally is utterly to evacuate them to make them run thus If we will persevere we shall persevere and so much was true under the old Covenant and without any Promise at all The clear scope of those Promises is That Believers are not left in their own hand but kept in Gods and how sure
excesses of Nature and therefore things very congruous to seal up those super-natural Truths which are above our Reason Evangelical Mysteries are such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have they entred into mans heart They are above the line of Reason and so very aptly ratified by those miraculous Works which are above the line of Nature We are in all Reason to conclude that God who acts above Nature is to be believed even when he speaks above Reason which being but a part of Nature may be as well exceeded by Mysteries as other parts of Nature are by Miracles But further his Miracles had a special aptitude in them to confirm the Gospel they were not destructive as the wonders in Egypt were nor meerly to raise an admiration as Simon Magus's were who would present himself flying in the air Spond Annal. 68. frame walking-statues and make bread out of stones that he might be esteemed a great one a kind of Deity among men No our Saviours Miracles were for the good of mankind he went up and down doing of good he healed the distempers of men and cast Devils out of their bodies And what works could be more admirably fitted to the Gospel which was ordained to heal inward distempers and cast Satan out of the Souls of men What can better accord together than healing Miracles and healing Doctrines It is very reasonable to believe that he who did such wonders on the bodies of men can do as much and more upon their souls He who cast Satan out of the outward man can eject him and all his furniture out of the inward Moreover it is to be observed that his Miracles were ordinarily wrought upon Faith Thus he said to the Centurion As thou hast believed so be it done to thee Matth. 8.13 Thus to the blind men According to your faith be it unto you Matth. 9.29 Thus to the Father of the possessed Child If thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth Mark 9.23 as if the Divine Power were made over to Faith We see here how our Saviour in doing his Miracles did put an honour upon Faith which is the Condition of the Gospel and withal what great reason we have to go to him for Spiritual Miracles who hath done so many Corporal The last instance of the Divine Power is in converting the world to Christianity in raising up a People to God out of the ruins of the Fall The Son of God did not come in the flesh meerly to do Miracles upon the bodies of Men No his greatest work is upon their souls Corporal Miracles were pledges of Spiritual Some of them as the inlightning of the blind and raising of the dead did as Estius observes type out the giving of the Vital Principles of Grace In Sent. lib. 2. fol. 337. to restore the faln faculties in men Some of them as Peters walking on the Waters by the helping-hand of Christ did shadow forth the giving of auxiliary Grace to Saints to keep them from sinking under Temptations As the external Miracles were wrought by the Power and Spirit of God so are the internal also When a blind mind is irradiated there is a word of Power such as at first commanded light out of darkness When a dead sinner is raised up to a Divine Life the Glory of God may be seen in it even as it was upon Lazarus's coming out of the Grave Now that we may see some Rays of this glorious Power several things are to be considered by us First of all let us look upon the state of the World as it was at our Saviours coming The world was made up of Jews and Gentiles both of them were not only tainted with Original sin but deeply corrupted with Actual out of both God would raise up a Church to himself to make the Power of his Grace known The Jews once Gods special People were now desperately degenerate blindness was upon them notwithstanding that Rabbinical learning was at the height in the Schools of Hillel and Shammai they interpreted the holy Scriptures as the Vail upon their hearts would let them in a very gross carnal manner as if they had lost all savour of things Divine and Spiritual Thus the establishing the mountain of the Lords house in the top of the mountains Isa 2.2 is with one of them the bringing of Tabor and Carmel and setting Jerusalem upon the top of them Buxt Syn. c. 10. The calling the sabbath a delight Isa 58.13 is to eat and drink and indulge their genius They made the Sacred Law whose primary aim was at the heart to bind only the outward Man According to their corrupt gloss there was no Murder but what purpled the hand with blood nor no Adultery but what was in the gross Act evil thoughts and purposes were not so much as peccadillo's neither did God take notice of them so as to punish for them A thought or purpose of sacriledg in Antiochus was nothing with Josephus regarding or seeing iniquity in the heart was nothing with David Kimchi as appears by his gloss upon the 66th Psalm Thus the Law was dispirited and strip't of its Divinity Religion went off from its Center the heart to paint and varnish over the outward Man Sin might reign and do what it would within so as it did not break out and profane the Life Having thus humbled the Law according to their own Model they stood upon their Terms with God they would establish their own Righteousness though it were a poor cadaverous thing without any Divine Life or Spirit in it yet they would prop it up and make it stand before God they were full of their own Righteousness and compleat in themselves they looked only for a Temporal Messiah one who by his outward greatness might subdue their Enemies and feast them in the holy Land A spiritual Saviour they expected not neither could it be thought according to their Principles what such an one should do for them As for his suffering or dying for them they jested at it as an horrible absurdity saying Tobias deliquit Weems of the Jew sigog plectitur their own Temporal death was expiation enough for all their sins Hence the sick man was to pray thus Buxt Syn. c. 35. Sit mors mea expiatio pro omnibus peccatis meis As for regenerating-Grace to be procured for them they dream't of no Regeneration but a ritual one The baptized Proselyte was accounted by them as recens natus one new-born The sick man having but his name changed was esteemed as nova creatura a new creature As for Eternal life they thought they could earn it by their own Works In none of these respects would the pride of their hearts suffer them to see any need of a Spiritual Saviour Further they advanced their Traditions above the written Word their Talmud is Lux illa magna that great light Isa 9.2 it is fundamentum legis the
foundation of the Law Dr. Li. Harm fol. 38. The words of the Scribes say they are more worthy than the words of the Law and more weighty than the words of the Prophets Thus departed they from the Scriptures and run themselves into a Labyrinth of Errors the power and vigor of Religion was evaporated into rituals and empty formalities if their Phylacteries were broad it was no matter how narrow the Law or Obedience to it were A clean outside would serve the turn though within there were nothing but hellish pollution Great vices might pass so as they were but sub umbrâ virtutis under a shadow of virtue their honesty was confined to those of their own Religion none else were neighbours with them they might lye or deal falsly with a stranger he was no neighbour if they did kill a stranger Seld. de sure Nat. Dr. Li. Harm fol. 46. they were not to dye for it by the sentence of the Sanhedrin he was no neighbour Nay and among themselves their Corban was able to untie the bonds of Nature and free them from Duty and Charity to their very Parents they seemed to be for cleansing the outside yet they fell into gross abominations The very Scribes and Pharisees their great Rabbies and Leaders from whom they were not to decline though they were told by them that their right-hand were their left would devour Widows houses and what but frauds and oppressions could be looked for among the ordinary sort Indeed among great and small ones there was a deluge of iniquity they had made their sins great and to fill up the measure they killed the Lord of life This was the fearful state of the Jews The Gentile World lay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Joh. 5.19 in the evil one in the hand and power of the Devil or in that which is evil in wickedness corrupting as a dead man doth in his Grave It 's true within they had an implanted notion of a Deity without they had the Creatures proclaiming their Creator But alas They held the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1.18 That little spark in their bosom which revealed a Deity was but a Captive it could not break out to give Glory to its Maker nor was it able to bear up the Honour of God in the World They could not but know God yet acknowledg him they would not though he made and bear up all things yet they owned him not no not in his own World They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed leasts and creeping things Rom. 1.23 And a little after They changed the truth of God into a lye and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed for ever Vers 25. They fell into all manner of Idolatries any thing might be God but the true one An high dishonour it was for them to prefer the vilest Creatures before the Optimus Maximus the best and greatest of Beings An horrible lye it was for them practically to say That a brute or a man or a star was a God or that a stock or a stone or a little dead matter in an Image did resemble the infinite Spirit Upon their Idolatry being an accursed departure from God the fountain of Goodness immediately followed a black train of abominations They were filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murder debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despiteful proud boasters inventers of evil things disobedient to parents without understanding covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmerciful Rom. 1.29 30 31. They were in these things as in their Element acting out of sinful hearts and habits and so gratifying their first and second corrupt Nature both at once And for all this they seemed to have a Patent from Heaven in the Vices of their gods which their own Authors set before them they did but follow their Deities their sins were made Divine by the highest Example This was the state of the Gentiles And now what manner of Power was that which raised up an holy People to God out of so corrupted a World And how much work was there to be done about it The light was to be commanded out of darkness The blind minds were to be opened upon Divine Mysteries The Law was to come forth in its pure Spirituality The great necessity of Christ and Grace was to be inwardly felt Shadows were to be turned into substance Religion was to be brought back to the heart The musty Traditions were to vanish before the Word The old Idols to be cast to the Bats and the Moles those blind Creatures The fallen Nature was to be new-framed The sinful habits to be unravelled Sinners twice dead in sin were to be raised up into a Divine Life Here a very excellent Power was manifested Hence the Apostle prays for the Ephesians That they may have eyes to see it that they may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Eph. 1.19 20. The words are very magnificent Power mighty Power exceeding greatness of Power all working and in act as it was in the raising up Christ from the dead so great a work is it to bring home sinners to God! The Divine Power will yet be more illustrious in our Eyes if we look upon the state of the World in the great Men of it such as were great in Power or Wisdom The great men in Power the Emperors and Potentates of the World were utter Enemies to Christianity breathing out nothing but blood against the Professors of it Nero first kindled the furnace of Persecution against them he took occasion as pure malice uses to do from his own barbarous act first causing Rome to be set on fire and then casting the odium of that horrid act upon the Christians He set forth Edicts commanding to persecute them unto Death as Enemies of mankind which made Tertullian say That it was grande bonum Apol. cap. 5. some great good that Nero condemned Domitian first slew his Brother Titus and then blowed up the furnace of Persecution against the Christians He spent most of his time in catching of flies yet would not omit the Christians Trajan no Nero no Domitian but in esteem a pattern of uprightness carried on the bloody work he would not indeed have the Christians sought for yet if found he would have them punished Antoninus Philosophus was amiable to all others yet cruel to Christians Severus though illustrious in Moral virtues was stained with their innocent blood Afterwards Maximinus Si Tyberis ascendit in mania si Nilus non ascendit in arva si coelum stetit si terra movit si fames si lues statim Christianos ad leonem acclamatur Tert. Ap. cap. 39. Decius Valerianus
not Carentia justitiae debitae inesse a want of what ought to be in us it is not a privative want a want of what we once had in Adams righteousness and afterwards lost in his sin but it is a meer negative want a want of that we never had nor never forfeited Adams righteousness being not imputed to us we never had it Adams sin being not imputed to us we never forfeited it such a meer negative want is no sin What though there be a pravity and propensity to all manner of sin in us It is no sin in unfallen creatures it is no sin to be made or created it is no sin to be born or brought forth it is no sin if there be no cause or foundation of it in us and there can be no cause or foundation of it in us if we no way participate of Adams sin it may be called misery but it is no sin Hence that saying of St. Austin Nulla foret hominis culpa si talis a Deo creatus esset qualis nunc nascitur There would be no fault in man if he were created such by God as he is now born the pure primordials of nature cannot be culpable That man who is meerly what his Creator made him is as he ought to be The result of all is this Adams sin not being imputed to us there can be no such thing as original sin though this Doctrine hath been maintained in the Church in all ages yet there is no such thing neither is Adams sin imputatively ours nor yet is the natural pravity in us any sin If therefore we will acknowledg original sin we must acknowledg that Adams sin is ours by a just Imputation Thus much touching the first original thing in sin Adams sin is imputatively ours The other is this We have an inordination and inherent pravity in us this depends upon the former All habitual sin hath an essential relation to some actual sin precedent no man can can be a sinner habitually who is totally free from actual sin If we had not in some sense sinned in Adams sin we could not have been habitually vitiated by it At first man was an excellent creature sparkling with a divine image of knowledg and righteousness all was in harmony the rational powers of the Soul were subordinate to God their Creator the sensitive powers were subject to the rational in every part there was a just decorum But upon the fall which was interpretatively ours the Crown fell from our head the Glory of the Divine Image departed the Soul became naked the very shame of the body told it that the primitive rectitude was wanting darkness fell upon the Mind the once region of light bondage and impotency fell upon the Will the once seat of power and liberty all was out of frame The rational powers turned rebels to God the sensitive were all in a mutiny against the rational There was in us a pravity an horrible propensity to all manner of iniquity a Belial-heart such as is evil and only evil and that continually This pravity runs parallel with our being and humanity it overspreads the whole Fabrick of our nature and so adheres to it that even in the Saints it is not utterly extinct till the last breath nor totally cleansed away till the Clay-walls of the body fall into the grave This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the conceiving-lust the womb where all iniquity is formed This is the Grave or Sheol in man which in its unreasonable desires never hath enough This is that Concupiscence which as the Rabbins say doth aedificare inferos make and build an Hell for men Now that there is such an inordination and inherent pravity in us doth easily appear by the following Considerations 1. The Scripture doth abundantly testifie it Adam begat a son in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth Gen. 5.3 Adam was created in the likeness of God v. 1 but after his fall he begat a son in his own likeness When God created man in his likeness it was sanctus sanctum an Holy God created an holy man But when Adam begat a son in his likeness it was corruptus corruptum polluted Adam begat a polluted son and in the Text there are two words likeness and image to set the greater brand upon corrupt nature It is remarkable that the Text doth not here speak of Abel who dyed without issue nor of Cain all whose progeny was drowned in the flood but of Seth by whom all mankind hath hitherto been continued in the world which shews that none are exempted from it God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart was only evil continually Gen. 6.5 and afterwards God saith that it was so from his youth Gen. 8.21 according to the original it is Every formation or figment of the heart all that was framed or effigiated there is only evil and that from his youth Where the Hebrew word used reaches in other Scriptures even to infancy Which shews that we are transgressors from the womb Hence one of the Jewish Rabbins being asked when the evil imagination was put into man answered From the hour that he is formed Hence that ancient saying Ipse ortus in vitio est Our first rise is iniquity Job speaking of mans birth saith Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.4 Man who is of unclean Parents must needs be unclean Nothing but supernatural grace can purifie such an one none but the Holy One can make us clean David cries out Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me in the Hebrew it is warm me Psal 51.5 He confesses that there was iniquity even in primo ardore in the first warmth of natural conception before he was born or saw the light he was polluted and unclean Antequam nascimur Apol. Dav. cap. 11. maculamur saith St. Ambrose Before we are born we are polluted Our Saviour speaking of Regeneration saith That which is born of the flesh is flesh Joh. 3.6 In natural generation there is nothing but flesh or corrupt nature the Spirit or Divine nature is from Regeneration only St. Paul stiles this inward pravity a body of sin Rom. 6.6 It is a loathsome carkass made up of vile matter It is not so much one sin as virtually all other sins are parts and branches of it The weight and pressure of this body made even St. Paul cry out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.24 Thus and much more doth the Scripture bear witness to this truth 2. No man who seriously looks into the frame of his own heart can want a proof of this truth Upon a faithful inspection into himself a sink of sin a Chaos of turpitudes and horrible irregularities will appear to be in him Reason was lighted up by God but it is now as a beam prodigiously cut off
audiunt they hear and learn of the Father He speaks to them inwardly in such words of life and power as produces the new-creature 4. The Ministry of Christ was a very excellent one He spake did lived as never man did there were Oracles in his mouth Miracles in his hands Sanctity in his life Never was there such an external call as here yet would this do the work Would this secure a Church or people to God No He tells them plainly That except they were born of the Spirit they could not enter Heaven That no man can come to him except the Father draw him There must be an internal traction or else there would be never a believer in the world Trahitur miris modis ut velit ab illo Aust ad Bon. lib. 1. cap. 19. qui novit intus in ipsis hominum cordibus operari In this Traction there is a secret and admirable touch upon the heart to make it believe and receive Christ This is an internal call indeed Yet as pregnant as the words are the Socinians have an art to turn Gods Traction into Mans Disposition and the Divine energy into human probity Vis praecipua in audientium probitate consistebat the chief force consists in the probity of the auditors Prael Theol. cap. 12. Thus Socinus touching that Traction Those who have probity of mind who will do Gods Will those honest Souls will embrace the Gospel When God is said to touch the heart 1 Sam. 10.26 the meaning is they had tangible hearts such as were inclinable to the Divine Will De Vera Rel. l. 4. cap. 1. so Volkelius And again when God draws men he proposes his Will and the probi the honest hearts are perswaded De Ver. Rel. lib. 5. cap. 18. so the same Author Thus by an odd perverse interpretation of Scripture the choicest operations of Grace are at last resolved into nature and freewill This more plainly appears by that explication which Volkelius in the place first quoted gives us of probity There are saith he in Man three things Reason Will and Appetite if the Will the middle faculty apply it self to Reason there is probity if to the Appetite there is improbity We see here what probity is the meer product of the Will Faith is resolved into probity and probity into the Will of man There is no need of Grace at least not of an internal one The probity requisite to Faith is according to these men much the same as Aristotle requires from the auditors of morality that is that they act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to Reason Eth. l. 1. c. 3. Thus according to them there is nothing of Mystery or Grace in this Traction but only a following the common principles of nature out of this temper Faith will spring up But do these men believe Scripture There the natural unregenerate man is thus described He is dead in sin A corrupt tree which cannot bring forth good fruit He perceives not spiritual things His carnal mind is not subject to the Law nor indeed can be Without grace he cannot do good no nor so much as spend a thought about it He is a stranger from the life of God and blindness is upon his heart and can there be any true probity in such an one The Corinthians at least some of them were before their conversion Fornicators Idolaters Adulterers Effeminate Abusers of themselves with Mankind Thieves Covetous Drunkards Revilers Extortioners 1 Cor. 6.9 and 10. And what probity was in them True probity such as is towards God is no other than sincerity and sincerity is not one Grace but the rectitude of all And may such a thing go before Faith Where true probity is there is a pure intention to do Gods Will and may it antecede that Faith which is the single eye and works by love Probity is not an off-spring of nature but of Grace could Free-will elevate it self to it there would need no traction no influence of Grace at all * Qui humilitati obedientiae humanae subjungunt gratiae adjutorium nec ut obedientes humiles simus ipsius gratiae donum esse consentiunt resistunt Apostolo diceenti quid habes quod non accepisti Gratiâ Dei sum quod sum Conc. Araus 2. can 6. The Fathers in the Arausican Council condemn those who subordinate Grace to mans humility or obedience as if humility and obedience were not gifts of Grace To conclude the Fathers Traction doth not stand in mans probity but in a Divine energy such as produces faith in the heart 2. The internal call is meerly of Grace The Spirit breathes where it lists God calls as he pleases some are called according to purpose all are not so Every heart under the Evangelical means is not opened as Lydia's was God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure If God be God an infinite Mind he must needs be free if free in any thing he must be so in acts of Grace in his calling men home unto himself It is true that according to some the Spirit is annexed to the Gospel and works equally on all the Auditors But this opinion labours under prodigious consequences I mean some such as these following are The Holy Spirit whose prerogative it is to breathe where he list and divide to every one as he will is here affixed to his own organ the Gospel and must part out his Grace equally to all The Ordinance of Preaching as if it were no longer a meer Ordinance or pendant on the Spirit must confer Grace if not ex opere operato yet in a certain promiscuous way to all The Minister who uses to look up for the spirit and excellency of power to succeed his labours may rest secure all is ready and at hand The peoples eyes which ought to wait on the Lord if peradventure he will give faith and repentance to them will soon fall down and center on the Ordinance where they are sure without a peradventure to have their share of Grace Those emphatical Scriptures which speak of singular Grace to some must now run in a much lower strain The opening of Lydia's heart how remarkable soever must be no singular Grace but common to the rest The tractions and inward teachings of the Father which make some to come to Christ must be general favours and extendible to those who come not to him When the Apostle saith That Christ is to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness but to them that are called the power and wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1. 23 24 How signal soever the difference in the Text be the internal call must be all one in those to whom Christ was a stumbling-block and foolishness as in those to whom he was the power and wisdom of God The called according to purpose are called but as other men Gods purpose is to call all a-like mans only makes the difference These are
nolumus De dono persever cap. 13. sed Deus in nobis operatur velle nos operamur sed Deus in nobis operatur ipsum operari pro bona voluntate We will and work but God works both in us And afterwards the same Father adds Hoc est pium hoc verum ut sit humilis confessio ut detur totum Deo This is pious and true that there may be an humble confession and the whole may be ascribed to God Again the Scripture tells us that Faith is not of our selves but the gift of God Ephes 2.8 that the very actual believing is freely given to us Phil. 1.29 We see here Faith is a meer gift it is not from our selves but from God And what can be more emphatical It is not said that Faith is offered but given external things which exist before they are given and received may be said to be offered but Faith which exists not before it be given and received cannot properly be said to be offered A Faith which is not given and received is a non-entity and a non-entity is not a gift Faith is Gods gift not where it is not but where it is That cannot be properly said to be given which is not received Giving and receiving relate mutually each to other therefore when Grace gives Faith it gives the very reception it causes a man to believe and when it causes a man to believe he doth infallibly do so and if he do not do so the gift is not a gift of Faith which the Apostle speaks of but of a power only to believe which answers not to the Text. Hence it appears That actual believing is meerly from Grace 2. If God only give a power of believing and that in common to all the actual believer makes himself to differ from others God gave him only the common Grace but the improvement of it is from himself God gave him only a power but the act which hath more of actuality and so of likeness to God and indeed is the very end and center of the power is from himself Man may now glory in himself as contributing of his own that which is perfective of that power which is from God After Grace hath done its utmost Mans Will is made the umpire whether the operations of Grace shall be something or nothing God made the heart and the wheels therein but the motion is mans own he only must determine this great concern Grace begins to build the new creature but man must finish the work or else it can never be done Grace fets the Will in aequilibrio and that 's all it must move no further but leave the event to the lottery of mans Will Thus God is debased and man exalted Free-grace is dethroned and Free-will is crowned But if we as we ought must glory in the Lord if we have nothing but what we have received then we must confess that the actual willing and believing is from Grace acknowledging with St. Cyprian In nullo gloriandum quando nostrum nihil est 3. It is a good Rule of Celestine Bishop of Rome Lex supplicandi facit legem credendi Epist ad Epise Gall. c. 10 11. Our Prayers teach us what we are to believe about Grace For what do we pray to God Is it not to have our hearts inclined to his commands and united to his fear Is it not to have our Wills bowed to obedience and swallowed up in the Divine Will What can be more congruous for man more pious towards God than this Yet if the willing and believing be not from Grace it is but * Irrisoria petitio est cum id ◠Deo petitur quod scitur ipsum non dare sed ipso non donante esse in hominis potestate Aust de don persev cap. 2. irriseria petitie a kind of mock-devotion There can hardly be a more unaccountable vanity than this To beg of God that which is not within the line of Grace to bestow which is wholly turned over to the power and will of man to effect We may here say with Seneca Quid votis opus est What need any prayers for that which we may have from our selves If the thing be not from God but from our selves we do not indeed pray but dissemble a prayer we make as if the thing were a gift of God when there is no such matter The Philosopher saith Epictetus expects all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from himself and so may the Christian too in the point of willing and believing if these be not Grace he need not look up to God for them Again for what do the Saints praise God Is it not for touching and opening their hearts to Christ for making them willing in the day of his power Is it not for putting his spirit within them and causing them to walk in his statutes What can be more due to God more proper for a Saint than this Hence they glorified God in the repenting Gentiles Acts 11.18 And again they glorified God in converting Paul Gal. 1.24 When David and his people offered willingly to God he falls into an holy extasie Who am I and what is my people 1 Chr. 29.14 All things saith he are of thee not only our gold and our silver not only our hearts and wills but our very actual willingness also yet if the willing and believing be not of Grace all these are but mockeries and false Hallelujahs They who glorifie God in Converts offer but a blind sacrifice and glorify but an Idol of their own fancy If God do not do the thing Why should we praise him for it How can we do so in truth when the matter will not bear it Indeed we do but dissemble a praise making as if he were the author of that which is not from him Thus we see that willing and believing must be from Grace or else we utterly evacuate those prayers and praises which are offered up to God touching the same Thus much touching the first thing That Grace works the willing and believing 2. Grace works it in a way of power St. Paul speaking of the success of the Gospel saith That the excellency of the power is of God 2 Cor. 4.7 And again he prays for the Thessalonians That God would fulfil the work of faith with power 2 Thes 1.11 If faith be fulfilled as it is by the acts of it then those acts are produced by the power of Grace Gods people are willing in the day of his power Psal 110.3 When the Disciples wonder'd how a Camel should go through a Needles eye how a rich man should be saved our Saviour solves the knot by the power of God With him all things are possible Luk. 18.27 The power of Grace can fetch off the World the Camels-bunch from the heart and make it pass as it were through the Needles eye into Heaven It 's true man wills man believes but it is from the strong and sweet gales of
in Christ and then there is a Progeny of good Works first he quickens and gives us a Spiritual Being and then we walk and live an holy Life first there is a good Treasure of Grace in the Heart and then the good things are brought forth out of it Matth. 12.35 Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of Doctrine whereto or into which you were delivered saith St. Paul Rom. 6.17 Here we see whence an holy Life springs the Gospel was not only delivered to them but by the Regenerating Spirit they were delivered into it and cast into the holy Mould of it and this was the true Reason of their Obedience in an holy Life Of his own Will begat he us with the Word of Truth that we should be a kind of First-fruits of his Creatures Jam. 1.18 The Apostle in the precedent verse shews us the infinite Sun or Fountain of all good things and in this Verse he gives us a famous instance in Regeneration opposing it to that concupiscence which is immediately before spoken of conpiscence is the Fountain of sin and so is Regeneratition of holy Obedience the very end of Regeneration is that we might be a kind of First-fruits of his Creatures separate from the World and consecrated unto God in an holy Life living as those who by Regenerating Grace are made a choice portion and peculiar People to him It is observed by some Divines That the Holy Patriarchs had barren Wives that their Posterity might shadow out the Church which is not produced by the power of Nature but of Grace the end of which production is that Fruit might be brought forth unto God in an Holy Life The Hebrew Doctors say That God out of his great Name Jehovah added the Letter He to the Names of Abraham and Sarah Hence that of the Cabalists Abram non gignit sed Abraham Sarai non parit sed Sarah In allusion to this I may say It is not the Humane Principles but the Divine Nature which Believers the Children of Abraham partake of that makes them bring forth the Fruits of an holy Life We have this exemplified in a greater than Abraham even in Jesus Christ he was first conceived of the Holy Ghost and then gave us that incomparable Pattern of Holiness in his excellent Life Sutably we are first supernaturally begotten to a Spiritual Being and then we live an Holy life He that Sanctifieth and they who are Sanctified are all of one Hebr. 2.11 Hence Camero observes De Eccles 223. that between Christ and Believers there is a wonderful Communion of Nature Both have an humane Nature Sanctified by the Holy Spirit he was conceived by the Holy Spirit they are regenerated by it that they may live unto God but to make this point the clearer I shall consider the two parts of the new Creature that is Faith and Love I call them so because the Apostle who saith Neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new Creature Gal. 6.15 saith also Neither Circumcision availeth nor uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love Gal. 5.6 intimating that Faith and Love are two great parts of the new Creature an holy Life flows from both these Hence some Learned Divines observe that the good Acts of Heathens have an essential defect in them the good Acts of Believers have only a gradual defect but the good Acts of Heathens have an essential one in that they do not flow from Faith and Love and so cannot Center in the Glory of God Therefore St. Austin retracts that Speech wherein he said Retr lib. 1. cap. 3. Philosophos virtutis luce fulcisse that the Philosophers did shine with the light of virtue But to speak distinctly of these two Graces First An Holy Life-issues out of Faith an holy Life is virtually in Faith and proceeds actually from it Faith sees the commands of God to be as they are richly Engraven with the Stamps and Signatures of Divine purity and equity such as Proclaim that God is in them of a truth and that they are the very Counterpains of his Heart and from hence it presses the Believer unto obedience and secretly dictates that these are the very Will of God and must be done Thy word is very pure therefore thy Servant loveth it Saith David Psal 119.140 The Emphatical therefore in the Text cannot be practically understood by any thing but Faith the Carnal Mind which is enmity to God would argue from the purity of the command to the hatred of it but Faith such is its Divine Genius argues from thence to Love and Obedience It doth not only point out the Divine Authority which is stampt upon the command but shew the purity and rectitude which is there to attract us into our duty and that we may do it in a free filial manner Faith derives a free Spirit from Christ to make obedience easie and natural to us a Man with his old Heart drudges in the ways of God and brings forth duties as the Bond-woman did her Son in a dead Servile manner but when Faith comes the commands are easie and the Will is upon the Wheel ready to move sweetly and strongly in compliance thereunto The Believer is Spirited and new Natured for Obedience his Heart is in a posture to do the Will of God every where Faith finds Arguments and Impulsives for it Doth it look upon the Life of Christ it immediately concludes these are the steps of our dear Lord and shall we not follow him After whom shall we walk if not after him It 's true he walked in pure sinless perfection such as we cannot reach but the gracious Covenant hath stooped to our frailty and made us sure that sincerity will be aceepted and how can we deny it or refuse to comply with such condescending Grace Doth it look upon Christs wounds and bloody Death these will cast shame and confusion upon an unholy life May any one imagine that our Saviour bore the Curse and Wrath of God that we might provoke it or expiated our sins at so dear a rate as his own Blood and Life that we might indulge them who sees not now that Sin is bloody and holiness amiable and what easie terms are proposed to us when the Death and Curse was only Christ's and the sincere Obedience is all that is required to be ours Doth it look up for the Spirit the purchase of Christ's death We well know where that is to be found the more we walk in the holy Commands and ways of God the more are we like to have of the gales and Divine comforts of it while we are obeying and doing the Will of God that Spirit will usher in assistances and Heavenly consolations upon us to give us an experimental proof of that Promise That the Holy Spirit is given to them that obey him doth it look within the vail to the Rivers of pleasures and plenitudes of joy in Heaven where pious Souls see Truth in the
is towards those which serve him spiritually A Man's Life cannot be holy praeterintentionally or by accident it is a pure Intention which spiritualizes and sanctifies the Life before God To clear this it is to be considered That the Life must be dedicated to God in a double respect it must be dedicated to him by a conformity to his Will And again It must be dedicated to him by a tendency to his Glory In both these there must be a pure intention to direct the same The first thing is There must be a pure Intention in our conformity to the Will of God Socinus saith That there is a Verbum quoddam interius a kind of internal word in Man that is a Reason to discern between that which is just and that which is unjust Praelect Theol. c. 2. And then he Adds He that obeys this internal word obeys God himself Etiamsi ipsum Deum non esse quidèm aut sciat aut cogitet although he do not know or think that there be a God And after concludes That such an Obedience is grateful to God But as great an Admirer of Holiness as this Heretick would seem to be it was no less than a prophane Assertion to say That there might be a grateful Obedience without any respect at all had to God or his Will Doth not St. Paul condemn in the Athenians the worship of an unknown God Doth not Christ charge the Samaritans that they did worship they knew not what Yet these are the portenta opinionum which this Master of Reason vents to the World But to pass over this It is not enough for an holy Life that the thing done be materially good but it must be therefore done because God commands it so to be an holy Man follows after Holiness because this is the Will of God Now that the material goodness of a thing is not enough may appear by these Instances Jehu in destroying the House of Ahab did do that which God commanded him to do yet God saith That he will avenge that Blood upon the House of Jehu Hos 1.4 And why so Jehu did that which God commanded but he did not obey in it he did it not in compliance with God's command but in pursuance of his own design as it is with the hand of a rusty Dial which stands still suppose at ten of the Clock to a Traveller passing at that hour it seemeth to go right but it is but by accident so was it with Jehu He seemed to obey in that which hit with his own Will but he did it not upon the account of God's for then he would have done other things But though he destroyed Ahab's House yet he did not destroy the Calves at Dan and Bethel For there God's Will did not fall in with his Another Instance we have in the acts of Moral Virtue in the Heathen those acts were materially good yet they did not in them serve God but their own Reason It 's true right Reason signifies the very Will of God but they did them not in compliance with Reason as significative of God's Will but in compliance with it as a chief part of themselves This is evident upon a double account the one is this That they were animals of Glory They did what they did not in an humble subjection to the Will of God but in a proud self-glorying way they arrogated all the praise and honour to themselves in all they did but sacrifice to the pride of their own Reason The other is this They did not only follow right Reason in their Moral Vertues but corrupt Reason in their Idolatries The Apostle saith Their foolish Heart was darkned Rom. 1.21 Here they followed Reason as a part of their corrupt self which those who follow it as significative of God's Will cannot be supposed to do Right Reason which imports God's Will was against their Idolatries yet they continued in them Hence it appears that in their Moral Vertues they did not serve God but their own Reason Hence St. Austin contends Contr. Jul. l. 4. c. 3. that their Vertues were not true Vertues They might be just sober merciful but they did all infidelitèr without respect to the Will and Glory of God Malè bonum facit qui infidelitèr facit Hence as Camero observes Cam. fol. 356. Lucretia hated Immodesty and Cato Perfidiousness not out of love to God but because those things were incongruous to Reason Another Instance we have in Carnal Professors under the Gospel they hear read pray give Alms but they do not do these spiritually in compliance with the Will of God the Duties are high but the aims in them are low and carnal Vast is the difference between an Holy and a Carnal Man An Holy Man is holy even in Natural and Civil Actions the Kingdom of Heaven is by a pure Intention brought down into his Trade Nay into his very Meat and Drink His deeds are by a Prerogative wrought in God when he toils as a Servant in servile Employment yet he serves the Lord Christ all is spiritualized by a pure Intention But on the other hand a Carnal Man is carnal even in spiritual Actions There is indeed the Opus operatum the Flesh the outward body of a Duty but there is no Soul or Spirit in it No pure Intention to carry it up to the Will and Glory of God to which it is consecrated Thus we see that it is not enough for an holy Life that the thing done be materially good No it must be done in compliance to the Divine Will I will keep the Commandments of my God saith David Psal 119.115 He would keep them not upon any by-account but because they were God's to whose Will he dedicated himself Lo I come to do thy Will O God saith our Saviour Hebr. 10.7 And again I seek not my own Will but the Will of the Father which hath sent me Joh. 5.30 Here we have the great Pattern of Holiness his Will was devoted and swallowed up in God's all that he did and suffered was in conformity to the Divine Will We must not dream of any true Holiness till we do what good we do out of compliance with the Divine Will as in matters of Faith we must believe quià Deus dixit so in matters of Practice we must obey quià Deus voluit His Command must sway and cast the Balance in Heart and Life the Nature of holy Obedience is this to do what God willeth intuitu voluntatis because he willeth it And hence an holy Man doth not pick and chuse among the commands of God but carry a respect to all of them The next thing is this There must be a pure Intention to direct our good Actions to the Glory of God seing God is Alpha he must be Omega seeing he is the Supream good he must be the Ultimate end of all things Nothing can be more rational than this That a Creature should be referred to its
will be loved no longer nay it will look according to its own hue like a vile base deformed thing fit for nothing but to be hung upon a Cross there to die and expire Hence it appears that an holy Man as long as his Faith discovers a vanity and nothingness in the fairest prospects of the World must needs overcome the World and the lusts of it Again An holy Man according to that supernatural Consecration which is upon him surrenders up his Love and Joy and Delight to God and Christ and Heavenly things the stream of his Heart which before run out upon the lying vanities here below is now turned to the excellent things above his Conversation is in Heaven his Treasure and his Heart are both there and then what must become of Sin must it not needs die away and become as a Body without a Spirit in it It is the Love and the Joy and the Delight of Man which animate Sin but if these are not here any longer but risen and gone away into the upper World to place and center themselves upon the excellent objects which are there then Sin must needs languish and die away it hath nothing to animate or enliven it any more were this Divine surrender in perfection Sin could not so much as be and proportionably where it is but in truth only Sin must needs grow heartless and powerless Notable is that of the Apostle Walk in the Spirit i.e. in the Elevations of holy Faith and Love and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of Flesh Gal. 5.16 Sin shall grow weak and by little and little give up the Ghost To conclude this Character An holy Man which way soever he looks sees just reason to mortify Sin the rectitude of the Law saith It must die for its crookedness and ataxy the threatning of Death saith It must die or the Soul must die in the room of it The bleeding Wounds of our dying Lord say That the Crucifier must not be spared but die after that manner That excellent Guest the holy Spirit saith It is too vile a thing to live under the same roof with it self The precious immortal Soul saith The wounds and turpitudes of it are too intolerable to be endured any longer Heaven that blessed Region saith It is not to be tolerated by any who mean to enter into that place We must then mortifie the deeds of the Body that we may live Rom. 8.13 that we may live a Life of Holiness here and a Life of Glory in another World Sixthly An holy Life is not made up of the Exercise of this or that Grace in particular but of the Exercise of all Graces pro hic nunc as occasion serves St. Peter saith That we must add to our Faith Vertue to Vertue Knowledge to Knowledge Temperance to Temperance Patience to Patience Godliness to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity 2 Pet. 1.5 6 7. Holy Men who are partakers of the Divine Nature spoken of immediately before have Grace upon Grace and must as occasion serves exercise one after another that there may be a Constellation of Graces appearing in their Lives to give the more full resemblance of the Perfections which are in their Father in Heaven our Saviour Christ in whom all Graces are set forth in lively and Orient colours and are really and practically exemplified to our view had this character justly given him he went up and down down doing good every step one odour of Grace or other brake forth from him Subjection to Parents or Magistrates or Zeal towards God or Humility in washing his Disciples feet or Meekness under false Accusations or melting Compassions letting out cures on the Bodies and Heavenly truths on the Souls of Men or admirable Patience under great sorrows and sufferings one glorious way of Holiness or other was always coming from him Proportionably an holy Man Who is a living Member of Christ must be in his measure holy in all manner of Conversation 1 Pet. 1.15 In the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which way soever he turn himself he must be holy in it he must have a respect to God at every turn this will best appear by the particular parts of his Life Take an holy Man in Divine Ordinances there he is holy He would first be sure that he is in a right Church and in a right Ordinance in a right Church for there the Lord commands the Blessing even Life for evermore in a right Ordinance for unless the Institution be from God the Benediction cannot be expected from him and then he would serve God in a right manner and sanctify his Name in his approaches when he comes to an Ordinance he hath high thoughts of God as being the Infinite Majesty of Heaven the Excellency of all Perfections one whom Angels adore and Devils tremble at accordingly he lies low before God he serves him with Reverence and godly Fear he draws nigh to him yet forgets not the infinite distance between them he blushes to think that he must go before so pure a Majesty with the dust of Mortality about him and again he blushes to think that he must do so in the spots and rags of many Infirmities which being in the Soul are much more abasive than those in the Body The Beams of the Divine Glory strike an holy awe into him and make him conclude That a Soul though entirely given up is to God but a little very little thing but as a Beam to the Sun or a drop to the Ocean and which is matter of more shame and abasement the Soul is much less in that the innate corruption holds back and the bewitching World steals away a great deal of it from God very little or rather nothing it is that we can give to him however the holy Man such is his Divine temper would not abate any thing but endeavour in Ordinances to give God his Spirit and highest Intention he knows that God is a Spirit and meer bodily worship is as nothing to him what is the bowing of the Knee when there is an Iron Sinew of Rebellion within or the lifting up of the Hands or Eyes when there is an earthly depression upon the affections towhat purpose is an open Ear when the Heart is deaf and shut up against holy Truths And what a shadow a meer lye in worship is the Body when the Mind is stole away and gone after Vanity He therefore sets himself to serve God in spirit and truth while God is speaking to him in his Sacred Word he would have no converse at all with worldly objects he bids these stand by and not interrupt his attention while he is speaking to God in prayer he would not only pour out words to God but his very Heart and Spirit if it were possible all of it without reserving so much as a glance or a piece of a broken thought towards carnal things a Duty to the Great God is a