they become the heirs of that Righteousness which is by faith and condemn the unbelieving careless world that take not the warning and use not the remedy By this time you may see that the Life of Faith is quite another thing than the lifeless opinion of multitudes that call themselves believers To say I believe there is a God a Christ a Heaven a Hell is as easie as it is common But the faith of the ungodly is but an uneffectual dream To dream that you are fighting wins no victories To dream that you are eating gets no strength To dream that you are running ridâ— no ground To dream that you are plowing or sowing or reaping procureth but a fruitless harvest And to dream that you are Princes may consist with beggery If you do any more than dream of Heaven and Hell how is it that you stir not and make it not appear by the diligence of your lives and the fervour of your duties and the seriousness of your endeavours that such wonderful unexpressible over-powering things are indeed the matters of your belief As you love your souls take heed lest you take an image of faith to be the thing it self Faith sets on work the powers of the soul for the obtaining of that joy and the escaping of that misery which you believe But the image of faith in self-deceivers neither warms nor works it conquereth no difficulties it stirs not up to faithful duty It 's blind and therefore seeth not God and how then should he be feared and loved Iâ— seeth not Hell and therefore the senseless soul goes on as fearlesly and merrily to the unquenchable fire as if he were in the safest way This image of faith annihilateth the most potent objects as to any due impression on the soul God is as no God and Heaven as no Hâ—aven to these imaginary Christians If a Prince be in the room an image reverenceth him not If musick and feasting be there an image finds no pleasure in them If fire and sword be there an image fears them not You may perceive by the senseless neglectful carriage of ungodly men that they see not by faith the God that they should love and fear the Heaven that they should seek and wait for or the Hell that they should with all possible care avoid He is indeed the true Believer that allowing the difference of degrees doth pray as if he saw the Lord and speak and live as alwaies in his presence and redeem his time as if he were to die to morrow or as one that seeth death approach and ready to lay hands upon him that begs and cries to God in prayer as one that foreseeth the day of judgement and the endless joy or misery that followeth that bestirreth him for everlasting life as one that seeth Heaven and Hell by the eye of faith Faith is a serious apprehension and causeth a serious conversation for it is instead of sight and presence From all this you may easily and certainly infer 1. That true faith is a Jewel rare and precious and not so common as nominal careless Christians think What say they Are we not all believers will you make Infidels of all that are not Saints are none Christians but those that live so strictly Answer I know they are not Infidels by profession but what they are indeed and what God will take them for you may soon perceive by comparing the description of faith with the inscription legible on their lives It 's common to say I do believe but is it common to find men pray and live as those that do believe indeed It is both in works of charity and of piety that a living faith will shew it self I will not therefore contend about the name If you are ungodly unjust or uncharitable and yet will call your selves Believers you may keep the name and see whether it will save you Have you forgotten how this case is determined by the holy Ghost himself James 2.14 c. What doth it profit my Brethren if a man say he hath faith and hath not works Can faith save him Faith if it hath not works is dead being alone Thou believest that there is one God thou dost well the Devils also believe and tremble If such a belief be it that thou gloriest in it 's not denyed thee But wilt thou know oh vain man that faith without works is dead c. Is there life where there is no motion Had you that Faith that is instead of sight it would make you more solicitous for the things unseen than you are for the visible trifles of this world 2. And hence you may observe that most true Believers are weak in Faith Alas how far do we all fall short of the love and zeal and care and diligence which we should have if we had but once beheld the things which we do believe Alas how dead are our affections how flat are our duties how cold and how slow are our endeavours how unprofitable are our lives in comparison of what one hours sight of Heaven and Hell would make them be O what a comfortable converse would it be if I might but joyn in prayer praise and holy conference one day or hour with a person that had seen the Lord and been in Heaven and born a part in the Angelical Praises Were our Congregations composed of such persons what manner of worship would they perform to God How unlike would their heavenly ravishing expressions be to these our sleepy heartless duties Were Heaven open to the view of all this Congregation while I am speaking to you or when we are speaking in prayer and praise to God imagine your selves what a change it would make upon the best of us in our services What apprehensions what affections what resolutions it would raise and what a posture it would cast us all into And do we not all profess to believe these things as revealed from Heaven by the infallible God Do we not say that such a Divine Revelation is as sure as if the things were in themselves laid open to our sight Why then are we no more affected with them Why are we no more transported by them Why do they no more command our souls and stir up our faculties to the most vigorous and lively exercise and call them off from things that are not to us considerable nor fit to have one glance of the eye of our observation nor a regardful thought nor the least affection unless as they subserve these greater things When you observe how much in your selves and others the frame of your souls in holy duty and the tenour of your lives towards God and man do differ from what they would be if you had seen the things that you believe let it mind you of the great imperfection of faith and humble us all in the sense of our imbâ—cility For though I know that the most perfect Faith is not apt to raise such high affections in
you saw the everlasting Glory which Christ hath purchased and prepared for his Saints That you had been once with Paul rapt up into the third Heavens and seen the things that are unutterable would you not after that have rather lived like Paul and undergone his sufferings and contempt than to have lived like the brain-sick brutish world If you had seen what Stephen saw before his death Acts 7.55 56. the Glory of God and Christ standing at his right hand If you had seen the thousands and millions of holy glorious spirits that are continually attending the Majesty of the Lord If you had seen the glorified spirits of the just that were once in flesh despised by the blind ungodly world while they waited on God in faith and holiness and hope for that blessed Crown which now they were If you had felt one moment of their joyes if you had seen them shine as the Sun in glory and made like unto the Angels of God if you had heard them sing the song of the Lamb and the joyful Hallelujahs and praise to their eternal King what would you be and what would you resolve on after such a sight as this If the rich man Luke 16. had seen Lazarus in Abrahams bosom in the midst of his bravery and honour and feasting and other sensual delights as afterwards he saw it when he was tormented in the flames of Hell do you think such a sight would not have cooled his mirth and jollity and helpt him to understand the nature and value of his earthly felicity and have proved a more effectual argument than a despised Preachers words at least to have brought him to a freer exercise of his Reason in a sober consideration of his state and waies Had you seen one hour what Abraham David Paul and all the Saints now see while sin and flesh doth keep us here in the dark what work do you think your selves it would make upon your hearts and lives 4 Suppose you saw the face of Death and that you were now lying under the power of some mortal sickness Physicians having forsaken you and said There is no hope Your friends weeping over you and preparing your winding sheet and coffin digging your graves and casting up the skulls and bones and earth that must again be cast in to be your covering and company Suppose you saw a Messenger from God to tell you that you must die to morrow or heard but what one of your predecessors heard Luke 12.20 Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall these things be that thou hast provided How would such a Message work with you would it leave you as you are If you heard a voice from God this night in your chamber in the dark telling you that this iâ— the last night that you shall live on earth and before to morrow your souls must be in another world and come before the dreadful God what would be the effect of such a Message And do you not verily believe that all this will very shortly be Nay do you not know without believing that you must die and leave your worldly glory and that all your pleasures and contents on earth will be as if they had never been and much worse O wonderful that a change so sure so great so near should no more affect you and no more be fore-thought on and no more prepared for and that you be not awakened by so full and certain a fore-knowledge to be in good sadness for eternal life as you seem to be when death is at hand 5. Suppose you saw the great and dreadful day of Judgement as it iâ— described by Christ himself in Matth. 25. When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all his holy Angels with him and shall sit upon his glorious Throne and all Nations shall be gathered before him and he shall separate them one from another as a Shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and shall set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left v. 31 32 33. and shall sentence the righteous to eternal life and the rest into everlasting punishment If you did now behold the glory and terrour of that great appearance how the Saints will be magnified and rejoyce and be justified against all the accusations of Satan and calumnies of wicked men and how the ungodly then would fain deny the words and deeds that now they glory in and what horrour and confusion will then overwhelm those wretched souls that now out-face the Messengers of the Lord Had you seen them trembling before the Lord that now are braving it out in the pride and arrogancy of their hearts Had you heard how then they will change their tune and wish they had never known their sins and wish they had lived in greater holiness than those whom they derided for it What would you say and do and be after such an amazing fight as this Would you sport it out in sin as you have done Would you take no better care for your salvation If you had seen those sayings out of the holy Ghost fulfilled Jude 14 15.2 Thes 1.7 8 9. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power What mind do you think you should be of What course would you take if you had but seen this dreadful day Could you go on to think and speak and live as sensually stupidly and negligently as now you do 2 Pet. 3.10 11 12. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the bravens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent beat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Is it possible soundly to believe such a day so sure so near and no more regard it nor make ready for it than the carelâ—ss and ungodly do 6. Suppose at that day you had heard the Devil accusing you of all the sins that you have committed and set them out in the most odious aggravations and call for justice against you to your Judge If you heard him pleading all those sins against you that now he daily tempts you to commit and now maketh you believe are harmless or small inconsiderable things If you heard him saying At such a time this sinner refused grace neglected Christ despised Heaven and preferred Earth at such a time he derided godliness and made a mock of the holy Word and Counsels of the Lord at such a time he prophaned the name of God he coveted his neighbours wealth he cherished thoughts of envy or of lust he was drunk or gluttonous or committed fornication and he was never thorowly converted by renewing
agreed whether its acts should be called physical properly or not Nay they cannot tell what doth individuate an act of sense whether when my eye doth at once see many words and letters of my Book every word or letter doth make as many individual acts by being so many objects And if so whether the parts of every letter also do not constitute an individual act and where we shall here stop And must all these trifles be considered in our Faith Assenting to the truths is not one Faith unless when separated from the rest and consenting to the good another act Nor is it one Faith to believe the promise and another to believe the pardon of sin and another to believe salvation and another to believe in God and another to believe in Jesus Christ nor one to believe in Christ as our Ransom and another as our Intercessor and another as our Teacher and another as our King and another to believe in the Holy Ghost c. I deny not but some one of these may be separated from the rest and being so separated may be called Faith but not the Christian Faith but only a material parcel of it which is like the limb of a man or of a tree which cut off from the rest is dead and ceaseth when separated to be a part any otherwise than Logical a part of the description The Faith which hath the promise of salvation and which you must live by hath 1. God for the Principal Revealer and his Veracity for its formal object 2. It hath Christ and Angels and Prophets and Apostles for the sub-revealers 3. It hath the Holy Ghost by the divine attesting operations before described to be the seal and the confirmer 4. It hath the same Holy Ghost for the internal exciter of it 5. It hath all truths of known divine revelation and all good of known divine donation by his Covenant to be the material general object 6. It hath the Covenant of Grace and the holy Scriptures and formerly the voice of Christ and his Apostles or any such sign of the mind of God for the instrumental efficient cause of the object in esse cognito And also the instrumental efficient of the act 7. It hath the pure Deity God himself as he is to be known and loved inceptively here and perfectly in Heaven for the final and most necessary material object 8. It hath the Lord Jesus Christ entirely in all essential to him as God and Man and as our Redeemer or Saviour as our Ransome Intercessor Teacher and Ruler for the most necessary mediate material object 9. It hath the gifts of Pardon Justification the Spirit of Sanctification or Love and all the necessary gifts of the Covenant for the material never-final objects And all this is essential to the Christian Faith even to that Fath which hath the promise of pardon and salvation And no one of these must be totally left out in the definition of it if you would not be deceived It is Heresie and not the Christian Faith if it exclude any one essential part And if it include it not it is Infidelity And indeed there is such a connexion of the objects that there is no part in truth where there is not the whole And it is impiety if any one part of the offered good that is necessary be refused It is no true Faith if it be not a true composition of all these Direct 8. There is no nearer way to know what true Faith is than truly to understand what your Baptismal Covenanting did contain In Scripture phrase to be a Disciple a Believer and a Christian is all one Acts 11.26 Acts 5.14 1 Tim. 4.12 Matth. 10.42 27.57 Luke 14.26 27 33. Acts 21.16 Joh. 9.28 And to be a Believer and to have Belief or Faith is all one and therefore to be a Christian and to have Faith is all one Christianity signifieth either our first entrance into the Christian State or our progress in it As Marriage signifieth either Matrimony or the Conjugal State continued in In the latter sense Christianity signifieth more than Faith for more than Faith is necessary to a Christian But in the former sense as Christianity signifieth but our becoming Christians by our covenanting with God so to have Faith or to be a Believer and internally to become a Christian in Scripture sense is all one and the outward covenanting is but the profession of Faith or Christianity Not that the word Faith is never taken in a narrower sense or that Christianity as it is our heart-covenant or consent containeth nothing but Faith as Faith is so taken in the narrowest sense But when Faith is taken as ordinarily in Scripture for that which is made the condition of Justification and Salvation and opposed to Heathenism Infidelity Judaism or the works of the Law it is commonly taken in this larger sense Faith is well enough described to them that understand what is implyed by the usual shorter description as that it is a believing acceptance of Christ and relying on him as our Saviour or for salvation Or a belief of pardon and the heavenly Glory as procured by the Redemption wrought by Christ and given by God in the Covenant of Grace But the reason is because all the rest is connoted and so to be understood by us as if it were exprest in words But the true and full definition of it is this The Christian Faith which is required at Baptism and then professed and hath the promise of Justification and Glorification is a true Belief of the Gospel and an acceptance of and consent unto the Covenant of Grace Particularly a believing that God is our Creatour our Owner our Ruler and our Chief Good and that Jesus Christ is God and man our Saviour our Ransoms our Teacher and our King and that the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier of the Church of Christ And it is an understanding serious consent that this God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be my God and reconciled Father in Christ my Saviour and my Sanctifier to justifie me sanctifie me and glorifie me in the perfect knowledge of God and mutual complacence in Heaven which belief and consent wrought in me by the Word and Spirit of Christ is grounded upon the Veracity of God as the chief Revealer and upon his Love and Mercy as the Donor and upon Christ and his Apostles as the Messengers of God and upon the Gospel and specially the Covenant of Grace as the instrumental Revelation and Donation it self And upon the many signal operations of the Holy Ghost as the divine infallible attestation of their truth Learn this definition and understand it throughly and it may prove a more solid useful knowledge to have the true nature of Faith or Christianity thus methodically printed on your minds than to read over a thousand volumes in a rambling and confused way of knowledge If any quarrel at this definition because the foundation is not first
Jesus Acts 21.13 3. In so strong a fortitude of soul as to venture and give up our selves our lives and all our comforts and hopes into the hand of Christ without any trouble or sinful fears and to pass through all difficulties and tryals in the way without any distrust or anxiety of mind These be the characters of a strong and great degree of faith And you may note how Heb. 11. describeth Faith commonly by this venturing and forsaking all upon the belief of God As in Noah's case verse 7. And in Abraham's leaving his Countrey v. 8. And in his sacrificing Isaac v. 17. And in Moses forsaking Pharaoh's Court and chusing the reproach of Christ rather than the pleasures of sin for a season v. 24 25 26. And in the Israelites venturing into the Red Sea v. 29. And in Rebab's hiding the spies which must needs be her danger in her own Countrey And in all those who by faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong O hers were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection and others had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword they wandered about in Sheep skins and Goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy They wandered in Desarts and Mountains and in Deus and Caves of the earth And in Heb. 10.32 33 c. They endured a great fight of affliction partly whilst they were made a gazing flock both by reproaches and afflictions and partly whilst they became companions of them that were so used And took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance And thus the just do live by faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him saith the Lord. See also Rom. 8.33 36 37 c. These are the Spirits descriptions of faith but if you will rather take a whimsical ignorant mans description who can only toss in his mouth the name of FREE GRACE and knoweth not of what he speaketh or what he affirmeth or what that name signifieth which he cheateth his own soul with instead of true Free Grace it self you must suffer the bitter fruits of your own delusion For my part I shall say thus much more to tell you why I say so much to help you to a right understanding of the nature of true Christian Faith 1. If you understand not truly what Faith is you understand not what Religion it is that you profess And so you call your selves Christians and know not what it is It seems those that said Lord we have eaten and drunken in thy presence and prophesied in thy Name did think they had been true Believers Matth. 7.21 22. 2. To erre about the nature of true Faith will engage you in abundance of other errours which will necessarily arise from that as it did them against whom James disputeth James 2.14 15 c. about Justification by Faith and by Works 3. It will damnably delude your souls about your own state and draw you to think that you have saving Faith because you have that fancy which you thought was it One comes boldly to Christ Mat. 8.19 Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest But when he heard The Foxes have holes and the Birds have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head we hear no more of him And another came with a Good Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Luke 18.18 as if he would have been one of Christs Disciples and have done any thing for Heaven And it 's like that he would have been a Christian if Free Grace had been as large and as little grace as some now imagine But when he heard Yet lackest thou one thing sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven Come follow me he was then very sorrowful for he was very rich Luke 18.21 22 23. Thousands cheat their souls with a conceit that they are Believers because they believe that they shall be saved by Free Grace without the faith and grace which Christ hath made necessary to salvation 4. And this will take off all those needful thoughts and means which should help you to the faith which yet you have not 5. And it will engage you in perverse disputes against that true faith which you understand not And you will think that you are contending for Free Grace and for the Faith when you are proud knowing nothing but sick or doting about questions which engender no better birth than strifes railings evil surmisings perverse disputings c. 1 Tim. 6.4 5. 6. Lastly You can scarce more dishonour the Christian Religion nor injure God and our Mediatour or harden men in Infidelity than by fathering your ill-shapen fictions on Christ and calling them the Christian or Justifying Faith Direct 29. Take not all doubts and fears of your salvation to be the proper effects and signs of unbelief Seeing that in many they arise from the misunderstanding of the meaning of Gods Promise and in more from the doubtfulness of their own qualifications rather than from any unbelief of the Promise or distrust of Christ It is ordinary with ignorant Christians to say that they cannot believe because they doubt of their own sincerity and salvation as thinking that it is the nature of true faith to believe that they themselves are justified and shall be saved and that to doubt of this is to doubt of the Promises because they doubtingly apply it Such distresses have false principles bought many to But there are two other things besides the weakness of faith which are usually the causes of all this 1. Many mistake the meaning of Christs Covenant and think that it hath no universality in it and that he died only for the Elect and promiseth pardon to none but the Elect no not on the condition of believing And therefore thinking that they can have no assurance that they are Elect they doubt of the conclusion And many of them think that the Promise extendeth not to such as they because of some sin or great unworthiness which they are guilty of And others think that they have not that Faith and Repentance which are the condition of the promise of pardon and salvation And in some of these the thing it self may be so obscure as to be indeed the matter of rational doubtfulness And in others of them the cause may be either a mistake about the true nature and signs of Faith and Repentance or else a timerous melancholy causeless suspition of themselves But which of all these soever be the cause it is something different from proper unbelief or distrust of God
saved 24. Promises to believers in sickness and at death 1 Cor. 11.32 But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world Heb. 12.6 7 8 11. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with Sons Shall we not be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live But he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby James 5.14 Is any sick let them send for the Elders of the Church The prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him John 11.3 He whom thou lovest is sick Psal 41.1 2 3. Blessed is the man that considereth the poor the Lord shall deliver him in time of trouble The Lord shall preserve him and keep him alive The Lord will strengthen him upon the bâ—d of languishing Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness 2 Cor. 5.1 c. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in us tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life Now he that hath wrought this for the self same thing is God who also hath given to us the earnest of the Spirit Therefore we are alwaies confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Phil. 1.20 21 23 Now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Luke 23.43 To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Rev. 14.13 I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me write Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Heb. 2.14 Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Psal 68.20 He that is our God is the God of salvation and to God the Lord belong the issues from death 2 Tim. 1.10 Who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel 1 Cor. 15.54 O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 25. Promises to persevering Believers of the Resurrection unto life and of Justification in Judgement and of Glorification 1 Cor. 15. throughout John 5.22 24 28 29. He that heareth my Word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation John 14.19 Because I live ye shall live also Col. 3.1 3 4. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory 2 Thes 1.10 He shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe Matth. 25 34 46. Come ye blessed c. The righteous into life eternal John 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be If my man serve me him will my Father honour John 14.1 2 3. Let not your heart be troubled In my Fathers house are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am there ye may be also John· 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me John 2.17 GO TO MY BRETHREN and SAY VNTO THEM I ASCEND TO MY FATHER and YOVR FATHER TO MY GOD and TO YOVR GOD. 1 Cor. 6.2 3. Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the world Know ye not that we shall judge Angels Acts 3.19 Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ Luke 14.14 Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just Let the Reader here take notice of that most important observation of Dr. Hammond that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection doth often signifie in general our living in the next world or our next state of life in the Scriptures and not the last Resurrection only unless it be called The Resurrection of the flesh or of the body for distinction or the context have before explained it otherwise By which 1 Cor. 15. and Christs answer to the Sadducees may be the better understood 26. Promises to the godly for their children supposing them to be faithful in dedicating them to God and educating them in his holy waies Exod. 20. Commandment 2d Shewing mercy to thousands in them that love me and keep my Commandments Acts 2.39 For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all that are afar off c. Psal 37.26 His seed is blessed 1 Cor. 7.14 Else were your children unclean but now are they holy Matth. 23.37 O Jerusalem Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth hee chickens under her wings and ye would not Rom. 11.11 Through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles 16 17 18 c. shew that they were broken off by unbelief and we are graffed in and are holy as they were Matth.
his body is a little weary his mind is so too and suffereth the weariness of the body to prevail Because the flesh is King within them Nay a slothful mind doth oft begin and they are weary to look upon their work or to think of it before it hath wearyed the body at all And what they do they do unwillingly because they are in love with idleness Mal. 1.13 But the lowly and laborious are in love with diligence and work and therefore though they cannot avoid the wearyness of the body their willing minds will carry on the body as far as it can well go The diligent woman worketh willingly with her hands her candle goeth not out by night c. Prov. 31.13 c. Servants must do service with good will as to the Lord Ephes 6.7 If Ministers preach and labour willingly they have a reward 1 Cor. 9.17 But not if they are only driven on by necessity and the fear of woe 1 Pet. 5.2 What shall we do willingly if not our duties He that sineth willingly and serveth God and followeth his labour unwilingly shall be rewarded according to his will 6. The idle Sodomite doth love and chuse that kind of life which is easiest and hath least work to be done This is the chief provision by which he fulfilleth his fleshly lust An idle servant thinketh that the best place in which he shall have most ease and fulness An idle Parent will cast all the burden of his childrens teaching upon the Schoolmaster and the Pastor An idle Minister thinketh himself best where he may have no more labour than what tendeth to his publick applause and when he hath the most wealth and honour and least to do he taketh that to be the flourishing prosperity of the Church And indeed if our calling were like the souldiers to kill men and not liker the Surgeons to cure them we might think it is the best time when we have least employment But the faithful servant will be most thankful for that state of life in which he doth most good And as he taketh doing good to be the surest way of getting and receiving so he taketh the good of another as his own and anothers necessity is his necessity He knoweth that he is best who is likest unto God and that is he that is the most abundant in love and doing good Like the Sun that never resteth from moving or giving light and heat The running spring is pure when the standing water is muddy and corrupt The cessation of motion quickly mortifieth the blood He that said as to works of charity Be not weary of well doing for in due time you shall reap if you faint not Gal. 6.9 hath said so too as to our bodily labour in our common callings in the world 2 Thes 3.13 I know that a servant may be glad of a place where he is not oppressed with unreasonable labour and where he hath competent time for the learning of Gods Word And a poor man may be glad when he is freed from necessity of doing that which is to his hurt But otherwise no man but a fleshly bruit will wish or contrive for a life of idleness Object Is it not said Blessed are the dead for they rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 Ans True but mark that their works follow them And what are the works which follow you And note that it is not work or duty that they shall rest from For they rest not crying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty c. But it is only their labours that is the painful sort of work and suffering proper to this sinful life The blessed indeed are freed in Heaven from this because they were not freed 〈◊〉 it on earth as the ungodly and slothful servant are 7. Lastly Idleness is seen by the work that is undone Pro. 24.30 The sluggards Vineyard is overgrown with weeds If your souls be unrenewed and your assurance of salvation and evidences yet to get and few the better for you in the world and you are yet unready for death and judgment you give too full a proof of idleness The diligent woman Prov. 31.16 c. could shew her labours in her treasures her Vineyard the cloathing and provisions of her family c. shew yours by the good which you have done in the world and by the preparation of your souls for a better world Let every man prove his own work that he may have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another Gal. 6.3 4. What case are your children in Are they taught or untaught What case is your soul in your fruit must judge you III. The mischiefs of this Sodomitical Idleness and the reasons against it are briefly these 1. It is contrary to the active nature of mans soul which in activity exceedeth the fire it self It is as natural for a soul to be active as for a stone or clod of earth to lie still And this active nature animateth the passive body to move it and use it in it's proper work And should this heavenly fire be imprisoned in the body which it should command and move Psal 104.23 Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour till the evening 2. It is contrary to the common course of nature Doth the Sun shine for you as well as for others or doth it not Doth all the frame of nature continue in its course the air the waters the summer and winter for you as well as for others or not If not then you take not your selves beholden to God for them And if you have no use for the Sun and other creatures you have no use for life for by them you live But if yea then what is it that they serve you for Did God ever frame you so glorious a retinuue to attend you only to sleep and laugh and play and to be idle what is all this for no higher an end or rather do you not by your idleness forfeit life and all these helps and maintainers of your lives 3. It is an unthankful reproach and blasphemy against the God of Nature yea and against the Lord your Redeemer to think that the wise Almighty God did make so noble a thing as a soul and place it in so curious an engine as the body where spirits and blood and heart and lungs are never idle but in constant motion and that he hath appointed us so glorious a retinue as aforesaid and all this to do nothing with or worse than nothing To sleep and rise and dress your selves and talk and eat and drink to tell men only that you are not dead lest they should mistake and bury you alive what is it but to put a scorn on your Creator and Redeemer to live as if he had created and redeemed you for no better and nobler ends than these 4. You do as it were pray for death or provoke God to take away your lives For if they be good for nothing else but idleness
sufferers it will cause us to possess our souls in patience and to let it have its perfect work 8. It will much overcome the fears of death It is no small abatement of them that Cicero and such honest Heathens had to think of the thousands of their worthiest Ancestors and that they were to go the common way of all mankind But how much more may it encourage a Believer to think that he is not only to go the way of all the world through the gate of mortality but the way also which all Gods Saints have gone save Henoch and Elias who are now in Heaven Thus died all the Prophets and the holy men of God yea Jesus Christ himself before us that death might be conquered when it seemed to have conquered Heb. 2.14 9. It will do much to raise us from hypocritical reserves and temporizings and from lukewarmness and resting in low degrees When our conversation is with the holy ones above we shall have upon our minds an ambition to attain to their degrees and to do Gods will on Earth as it is done in Heaven It will much encline us to the highest and noblest sort of duty which the spirits of the just made perfect do perform He that converseth only with his own sad tempted sinful heart and with tempted faulty mourning Christians may learn to confess and mourn and weep and pray But he that also converseth with glorified spirits will be so rapt up with their heavenly melody that he will learn and long to love God more fervently to praise him more chearfully and to give him thanks more abundantly for his mercies Heaven-work is learnt by a heavenly mind in the use of a heavenly conversation 10. And to look much at our Brethren that are now in glory will also fill our lives with pleasures and make our Religion our continual joy and will help us to a foretaste of Heaven on Earth For we shall as it were take our selves to be almost with then and their melodies will be our delight and love to them will make their joyes to be our own And though it is the sight of God and our Mediatour by faith which must be our chiefest hope and joy yet while we are here men in flesh yea more when we have laid by flesh and blood the presence of all the blessed spirits and heavenly host will be a great though subordinate part of our heavenly felicity and delight Direct 6. When you have gone thus far consider what obligations lie upon you to converse by Faith with your Brethren in Heaven and to look up frequently to their state and work 1. Your necessary Love to God requireth it For as your Love to him must be shewed by your loving his Image in your Brethren so it requireth you to love them most that are likest God or else you love them not for his likeness And it requireth you to love them most whom God loveth most and that is those that are likest him and nearest him And he that loveth God in his creatures and loveth any one truly for God must love the Angels and perfected Spirits best because they love him best and are nearest him and likest to him and are also most beloved by him 2. The common nature of Love and Humanity requireth it For it requireth us to love that best which is best as is said But the blessed ones in Heaven are better than any here on Earth and therefore should be better loved 3. The nature of our Love to the Saints requireth it For if we love them as Saints and Godly we shall love those most that are most holy and that is the blessed ones above And if we love them most we shall certainly mind them and converse with them by Faith and not be voluntary strangers to them 4. It is part of that heavenly conversation which is commended to us Phil. 3.20 21. When it is said that our conversation is in Heaven it signifieth that our Burgeship is there and our interest and great concerns are there and our dwelling is there and our trading and thriving business is there and for it and our friends and fellow-citizens and those that we daily trade and converse with in love and familiarity are there even as our God and our Head and our Inheritance is there He never knew a heavenly conversation that pretending there to know God alone hath no converse with his holy ones that attend him and doth not live as a member of their society in the City of God that doth not with some delight behold their holiness unity and order c. 5. The honouring of God and our Redeemer doth require it that we daily converse with the Saints in Heaven Because it is in them that God is seen in the greatest glory of his Love and it is in them that the Power and Efficacy and Love of our dear Redeemer most appeareth You judge now of the Father by his Children and of the Physician by his Patients and of the Builder by the House and of the Captain by his Victories And if you see no better children of God than such childish crying feeble froward diseased burdensome ones as we are you will rob him of the chief of this his honour And if you look at none of the Patients of our Saviour but such lame and languid pained groaning diseased half-cured ones as we you will rob him of the glory of his skill and cures And if you look but to such an imperfect broken fabrick as the Church on Earth you will dishonour the Builder And if you look to no other Victories of Christ and his Spirit but what is made in this confused dark and bedlam world you will be tempted to dishonour his conduct and his conquests But if you will look to his Children in Heaven who are perfected in his Love and Likeness and to Christs Patients which are there perfectly cured and to his Building in the heavenly unity and glory and to all his Victories as there compleat then you will give him the glory which is his due Rev. 21. 22. 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. 6. So also you will dishonour Religion and the Church if you converse not with the Saints above For the reasons last given For you will judge of the Church and of Religion by such imperfect things as here you see where men turn Religion to the service of their worldly interests and ends and fight for ambition faction tyranny usurpation and worldly lusts under the sacred names of Religion and the Church and for the pretended Love of Christ and one another do tear the Church into shreds and worry and hunt and devour one another You will be tempted to be Infidels if you do not here converse with the sincere humble holy charitable Christians and look up to Heaven to perfect souls And then you will see a Church that is truly amiable holy unanimous and glorious in perfect Love 7. If you look not up to
Nos quoque floruimus sed flos fuit ille caducus Flammaque de stipula nostra brevisque fuit Ov. VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OP ET PATA FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS An. 1670. AETAT SUAE 55º Farewell vaine World as thou hast been to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ The Leaves Fruit are dropt for soyle and Seed Heaven's heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Rest THE LIFE OF FAITH THE Life of Faith In Three PARTS The First is a Sermon on Heb. 11.1 formerly preached before His Majesty and published by his Command with another added for the fuller Application The Second is Instructions for confirming Believers in the Christian Faith The Third is Directions how to live by Faith or how to exercise it upon all occasions By RICHARD BAXTER 2 Cor. 5.7 For we walk by faith not by sight 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. For which cause we faint not but though our outward man parish yet the inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Heb. 12.27 By faith he forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible LONDON Printed by R. W. for Nevill Simmons at the three Crowns over against Holbern Conduit 1670. To the Worshipfull my much honoured Friend Richard Hampden of Hampden Esquire and the Lady Laetitia his Wife Grace and Peace be multiplied SIR YOur Names stand here in the front of this Treatise on a double account First that the custom of Writers having given me such an advantage I may tell the present and future Ages how much I love and honour your Piety Sobriety Integrity and Moderation in an Age when such Vertues grow into contempt or into lifeless Images and Names And how much I am my self your debter for the manifold expressions of your love and that in an Age when 〈…〉 the superioâ—â—â—â—culties is ouâ— of fâ—shion and towards such as I is grown â— crime Sincerity and 〈◊〉 are things that shall be honourable when Hypocrisie and Malice have done their worst But they are most conspicuous and refulgent in times of â—â—rity and when the shame of their contraries seâ— them off Secondly To signifie my Love and Gratitude by the best 〈◊〉 which I can make which is by tendering to you and to your family the surest Directions for the most noble manly life on earth in order to a blessed life in Heaven Though you have proceeded well you 〈…〉 need of help so great a 〈…〉 for skilfull counsel and 〈…〉 and industrious and unweaâ—â—◠〈…〉 And your hopeful children may 〈…〉 to learn this excellenâ— Life from these Directions for the love of your prefixed Names And how happy will they bâ— if they converse with God 〈…〉 are wallowing in the 〈◊〉 of 〈…〉 When the dead heaâ—ted sinner thinketh not of 〈…〉 be dragg'd out of 〈◊〉 paâ—pered corruptible flesh to divinie 〈◊〉 and â—â—â—with the beginnings of endless 〈◊〉 to the world where they might have found everlasting rest what joy will then be the portion of mortified and patient Believers whosâ— Treasâ—â—â—s and Hearts and Conversatiâ—â— in Heâ—ven are now the foretaste of their possession as the Spirit of Christ which causeth this iâ— the seâ—â— of God and the pledge and earnest of their inheritance If a 〈◊〉 pleasing life in a dark distracted 〈◊〉 world were better than a life with God and Angels methinks yet they that know they cannot have what they 〈◊〉 should make sue of what they may haâ—â— And they that cannot keep what they 〈◊〉 should learn to 〈◊〉 what 〈◊〉 may keep Wonderfull stupidity â—hâ—t they 〈…〉 dead bodies 〈…〉 grave is as common a work 〈…〉 children into the world and that this life is but the road to another and that all men are posting on to their 〈…〉 should think no more considerately whither so many thousand souls do go that daily shoot the gulf of death and return no more to the world which one they called their home That men will have no house or home but the ship which carryeth them so swiftly to eternity and spend their time in furnishing a dwelling on such a tempestuous Sea where winds and tide are hasting them to the shore and even to the end are contriving to live where they are daily dying and care for no â—â—bitation but on horse-back That almost all men die much wiser than they lived and yet the certain foreknowledge of death will not serve to make them more seasonably and more safely wiâ—e Wonderful that it should be possible for a man awake to believe that he must shortly be gone from earth and enter into an unchangeable endless life and yet not bend the thoughts of his soul and the labours of his life to secure his true and 〈…〉 Adam hath given sin the 〈…〉 grace and madness the priority to wisdom and our wisdom health and safety must now come after by the way of recovery and cure The first born of lapsed man was a malignant persecuting Cain The first born of believing Abraham was a persecutor of him that was born after the Spirit 1 John 3.12 Gal. 4.29 And the first born of this Isaac himself was a profane Esau that for one morsel sold his birth-right Heb. 12.16 And naturally we are all the off-spring of this profaneness and have not acquaintance enough with God and with healthful holiness and with the everlasting heavenly Glory to make us cordially preferr it before a forbidden cup or morsel or a game at foolery or a filthy lust or before the wind of a gilded fools acclamation and applause or the cap and counterfeit subjection of the multitude But the fortunae non tua turba ut Ov. quos sportula fecit amici ut Juv. who will serve mens lusts and be their servants and humble attendants to damnation are regarded more than the God the Saviour the Sanctifier to whom these perfidious rebels were once devoted That you and yours may live that more wise and delightful life which consisteth in the daily sight of Heaven by a Living Faith which worketh by Love in constant Obedience is the principal end of this publick appellation That what is here written for the use of all may be first and specially useful to you and yours whom I am so much bound to love and honour even to your safe and comfortable life and death and to your future joy and glory which is the great desire of Your obliged Servant RICH. BAXTER Feb. 4. 1669. THE PREFACE Reader 1. IF it offend thee that the Parts of
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Assent p. 540. l. 21. put out and p. 582. l. 11. r. friends THE Life of Faith HEBREWS 11.1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen THough the wicked are distinguished into Hypocrites and Vnbelievers yet Hypocrites themselves are Vnbelievers too They have no faith which they can justifie by its prevailing efficacy and works and therefore have no faith by which they can be justified Because their discovery is needful to their recovery and all our salvation depends on the sincerity of our faith I have chosen this text which is a description of faith that the opening of it may help us for the opening of our hearts and resolving the great question on which our endless life depends To be a Christian and to be a Believer in Christ are words in Scripture of the same signification If you have not faith you are not Christians This faith hath various offices and objects By it we are justified sanctified and saved We are justified not by believing that we are justified but by believing that we may be justified Not by receiving justification immediately but by receiving Christ for our justification not by meer accepting the pardon in it self but by first receiving him that procureth and bestoweth it on his terms Not by meer accepting health but by receiving the Physician and his remedies for health Faith is the practical Believing in God as promising and Christ as procuring justification and salvation Or the practical belief and acceptance of life as procured by Christ and promised by God in the Gospel The everlasting fruition of God in Heaven is the ultimate object No man believeth in Christ as Christ that believeth not in him for eternal life As faith looks at Christ as the necessary means and at the divine benignity as the fountain and at his veracity as the foundation or formal object and at the promise as the true signification of his will so doth it ultimately look at our salvation begun on earth and perfected in Heaven as the end for which it looketh at the rest No wonder therefore if the holy Ghost here speaking of the Dignity and Power of faith do principally insist on that part of its description which is taken from this final object As Christ himself in his Humiliation was rejected by the Gentiles and a stumbling stone to the Jews despised and not esteemed Isa 53.2 3. having made himself of no reputation Phil. 2 7. So faith in Christ as incarnate and crucified is despised and counted foolishness by the world But as Christ in his glory and the glory of believers shall force them to an aweful admiration so faith it self as exercised on that glory is more glorious in the eyes of all Believers are never so reverenced by the world as when they converse in Heaven and the Spirit of Glory resteth on them 1 Pet. 4.14 How faith by beholding this glorious end doth move all the faculties of the soul and subdue the inclinations and interests of the flesh and make the greatest sufferings tollerable is the work of the holy Ghost in this Chapter to demonstrate which beginning with the description proceeds to the proof by a cloud of witnesses There are two sorts of persons and imployments in the world for whom there are two contrary ends hereafter One sort subject their reason to their sensual or carnal interest The other subject their senses to their reason cleared conducted and elevated by faith Things present or possessed are the riches of the sensual and the byas of their hearts and lives Things absent but hoped for are the riches of Believers which actuate their chief endeavours This is the sense of the text which I have read to you which setting things hoped for in opposition to things present and things unseen to those that sense doth apprehend assureth us that faith which fixeth on the first doth give to its object a subsistence presence and evidence that is it seeth that which supplieth the want of presence and visibility The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that which quoad effectum is equal to a present subsistence And the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the evidence is somewhat which quoad effectum is equal to visibility As if he had said Though the glory promised to Believers and expected by them be yet to come and only hoped for and be yet unseen and only believed yet is the sound believer as truly affected with it and acted by its attractive force as if it were present and before his eyes as a man is by an inheritance or estate in reversion or out of sight if well secured and not only by that which is present to his view The Syriack Interpreter instead of a Translation gives us a true exposition of the words viz. Faith is a certainty of those things that are in hope as if they did already actually exist and the revelation of
degree as shall be raised by the beatifical vision in the glorified and as present intuition now would raise if we could attain it yet seeing Faith hath as sure an Object and Revelation as sight it self though the manner of apprehension be less affecting it should do much more with us than it doth and bring us nearer to such affections and resolutions as sight would cause Vse 2. If Faith be given us to make things to come as if they were at hand and things unseen as if we saw them you may see from hence 1. The reason of that holy seriousness of Believers which the ungodly want 2. And the reason why the ungodly want it 3. And why they wonder at and distaste and deride this serious diligence of the Saints 1. Would you make it any matter of wonder for men to be more careful of their souls more fervent in their requests to God more fearful of offending him and more laborious in all holy preparation for eternal life than the holiest and precisest person that you know in all the world if so be that Heaven and Hell were seen to them Would you not rather wonder at the dulness and coldness and negligence of the best and that they are not far more holy and diligent than they are if you and they did see these things Why then do you not cease your wondering at their diligence Do you not know that they are men that have seen the Lord whom they daily serve and seen the glory which they daily seek and seen the place of torments which they fly from By Faith in the glass of Divine Revelations they have seen them 2. And the reason why the careless world are not as diligent and holy as Believers is because they have not this eye of Faith and never saw those powerful objects that Believers see Had you their eyes you would have their hearts and lives O that the Lord would but illuminate you and give you such a sight of the things unseen as every true Believer hath What a happy change would it make upon you Then instead of your deriding or opposing it we should have your company in the holy path You would then be such your selves as you now deride If you saw what they see you would do as they do When the heavenly light had appeared unto Saul he ceaseth persecuting and enquires what Christ would have him to do that he might be such a one as he had persecuted And when the scales fell from his eyes he falls to prayer and gets among the Believers whom he had persecuted and laboureth and suffereth more than they 3. But till this light appear to your darkned souls you cannot see the reasons of a holy heavenly life and therefore you will think it hypocrisie or pride or fancy and imagination or the foolishness of cracktâ—brain'd self-conceited men If you see a man do reverence to a Prince and the Prince himself were invisible to you would you not take him for a mad man and say that he cringed to the stools or chairs or bowed to a post or complemented with his shadow If you saw a mans action in eating and drinking and see not the meat and drink it self would you not think him mad If you heard men laugh and hear not so much as the voice of him that gives the jeast would you not imagine them to be brain-sick If you see men dance and hear not the musick if you see a Labourer threshing or reaping or mowing and see no corn or grass before him if you see a Souldier fighting for his life and see no enemy that he spends his stroaks upon will you not take all these for men distracted Why this is the case between you and the true Believers You see them reverently worship God but you see not the Majesty which they worship as they do You see them as busie for the saving of their souls as if an hundred lives lay on it but you see not the Hell from which they fly nor the Heaven they seek and therefore you marvel why they make so much ado about the matters of their salvation and why they cannot do as others and make as light of Christ and Heaven as they that desire to be excused and think they have more needful things to mind But did you see with the eyes of a true Believer and were the amazing things that God hath revealed to us but open to your sight how quickly would you be satisfied and sooner mock at the diligence of a drowning man that is striving for his life or at the labour of the City when they are busily quenching the flames in their habitations than mock at them that are striving for the everlasting life and praying and labouring against the ever-burning flames How soon would you turn your admiration against the stupidity of the careless world and wonder more that ever men that hear the Scriptures and see with their eyes the works of God can make so light of matters of such unspeakable eternal consequence Did you but see Heaven and Hell it would amaze you to think that ever many yea so many and so seeming wise should wilfully run into everlasting fire and sell their souls at so low a rate as if it were as easie to be in Hell as in an Ale-house and Heaven were no better than a beastly lust O then with what astonishment would you think Is this the fire that sinners do so little fear Is this the glory that is so neglected You would then see that the madness of the ungodly is the wonder Vse 3. By this time I should think that some of your own Consciences have prevented me in the Vse of Examination which I am next to call you to I hope while I have been holding you the glass you have not turned away your faces nor shut your eyes But that you have been judging your selves by the light which hath been set up before you Have not some of your consciences said by this time If this be the nature and use of Faith to make things unseen as if we saw them what a desolate case then is my soul in how void of Faith how full of Infidelity how far from the truth and power of Christianity How dangerously have I long deceived my self in calling my self a true Christian and pretending to be a true Believer When I never knew the life of Faith but took a dead opinion bred only by education and the custom of the Countrey instead of it little did I think that I had been an Infidel at the heart while I so confidently laid claim to the name of a Believer Alas how far have I been from living as one that seeth the things that he professeth to Believe If some of your consciences be not thus convinced and perceive not yet your want of faith I fear it is because they are seared or asleep But if yet conscience have not begun to plead this cause against you
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aâ—â—ess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ— condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâ—lieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâ—th on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ— your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you
can lay out your love and care and labour on nothing else that will answer your expectations nor make any other bargain whatsoever but what you are sure to be utterly undone by Psal 73.25 4.6 7. Mat. 6.20 21. 13.45 46. Luke 18.33 3. A sound belief of things invisible will be so far an effectual spring of a holy life as that you will seek first the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness Mat. 6.33 and not in your Resolutions only but in your Practices the bent of your lives will be for God and your invisible felicity It is not possible that you should see by faith the wonders of the world to come and yet prefer this world before it A dead opinionative belief may stand with a worldly fleshly life but a working faith will make you stir and make the things of God your business and the labour and industry of your lives will shew whether you soundly believe the things unseen 4. If you savingly believe the invisible things you will purchase them at any rate and hold them faster than your worldly accommodations and will suffer the loss of all things visible rather than you will cast away your hopes of the glory which you never saw A humane faith and bare opinion will not hold fast when trial comes For such men take Heaven but for a reserve because they must leave earth against their wills and are loth to go to Hell but they are resolved to hold the world as long as they can because their faith apprehendeth no such satisfying certainty of the things unseen as will encourage them to let go all that they see and have in sensible possession But the weakest faith that 's true and saving doth habitually dispose the soul to let go all the hopes and happiness of this world when they are inconsistent with our spiritual hopes and happiness Luke 14.33 And now I have gone before you with the light and shewed you what a Believer is will you presently consider how 〈◊〉 your hearts and lives agree to this description To know Whether you live by faith or not is consequentially to know whether God or the world be your portion and felicity and so whether you are the heirs of Heaven or Hell And is not this a question that you are most nearly concerned in O therefore for your souls sakes and as ever you love your everlasting peace Examine your selves whether you are in the faith or not Know you not that Christ is in you by faith except you be reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 will you hearken now as long to your consciences as you have done to me As you have heard me telling you what is the nature of a living saving faith will you hearken to your consciences while they impartially tell you whether you have this life of faith or not It may be known if you are willing and diligent and impartial Iâ— you search on purpose as men that would know whether they are alive or dead and whether they shall live or die for ever and not as men that would be flattered and deceived and are resolved to think well of their state be it true or false Let conscience tell you What eyes do you see by for the conduct of the chief imployment of your lives Is it by the eye of sense or faith I take it for granted that it 's by the eye of Reason But is it by Reason corrupted and byâ—ssed by sense or is it by Reason elevated by faith What Countrey is it that your hearts converse in Is it in Heaven or Earth What company is it that you solace your selves with Is it with Angels and Saints Do you walk with them in the Spirit and joyn your eccho's to their triumphant praises and say Amen when by faith you hear them ascribing honour and praise and glory to the ancient of daies the Omnipotent Jehovah that is and that was and is to come Do you fetch your Joyes from Heaven or Earth from things unseen or seen things future or present things hoped for or things possessed What Garden yieldeth you your sweetest flowers Whence is the food that your hopes and comforts live upon Whence are the spirits and cordials that revive you when a frowning world doth cast you into a fainting fit or swoun Where is it that you repose your souls for Rest when sin or sufferings have made you weary Deal truly Is it in Heaven or Earth Which world do you take for your pilgrimage and which for your home I do not ask you where you are but where you dwell not where are your persons but where are your hearts In a word Are you in good earnest when you say you believe a Heaven and Hell And do you think and speak and pray and live as those that do indeed believe it Do you spend your time and chuse your condition of life and dispose of your affairs and answer temptations to worldly things as those that are serious in their belief Speak out do you live the life of faith upon things unseen or the life of sense on things that you behold Deal truly for your endless â—oy or sorrow doth much depend on it The life of faith is the certain passage to the life of glory The fleshly life on things here seen is the certain way to endless misery If you live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye by the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8.13 Be not dâ—ceived God is not mocked â— for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life Gal. 6.7 8. If you would know where you must live for ever know how and for what and upon what it is that you live here Vse 4. Having enquired whether you are Believers I am next to ask you what you will be for the time to come will you live upon things seen or unseen While you arrogate the name and honour of being Christians will you bethink you what Christianity is and will you be indeed what you say you are and would be thought to be Oh that you would give credit to the Word of God that the God of Heaven might be but heartily believed by you And that you would but take his Word to be as sure as sense and what he hath told you is or will be to be as certain as if you saw it with your eyes Oh what manner of persons would you then be how carefully and fruitfully would you speak and live How impossible were it then that you should be careless and prophane And here that I may by seriousness bring you to be serious in so serious a business I shall first put a few suppositions to you about the invisible objects of faith and then I shall put some applicatory questions to you concerning your own resolutions and
wonder that such men can believe themselves when they say they do indeed believe the Gospel And shews what a monster the blind deceitful heart of an impenitent sinner is In good sadness can they think that they truly believe that God is God and yet so wilfully disobey him that Heaven is Heaven and yet prefer the world before it that Hell is Hell and yet will venture upon it for a lust or a thing of nought What! believe that there is at hand a life of endless joy and no more mind it but hate them that set their hearts upon it Do they believe that except a man be converted and new born he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ hath told them Matth. 18.3 John 3.3 5. and yet never trouble their minds about it to try whether they are converted and new born or not Do they believe God that no man shall see him without holiness Heb. 12.14 and yet dare they be unholy and perhaps deride it Do they believe that Christ will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 2.8 9. and yet dare they disobey the Gospel Do they take God for their absolute Lord and Governour while they will not so much as meditate on his Laws but care more what a mortal man saith or what their flesh and carnal reason saith than what he saith to them in his holy Word Do they take Christ for their Saviour and yet would not be saved by him from their sins but had rather keep them Do they take the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier while they will not have a sanctified heart or life and love it not in those that have it Do they take Heaven for their endless home and happiness while they neither mind nor seek it in comparison of the world And do they take the world for vanity and vexation while they mind and seek it more than Heaven Do they believe the communion of Saints while they fly from it and perhaps detest and persecute it Is light and darkness more contrary than their words and deeds And is not HYPOCRISIE as visible in their practice as Christianity in their profession It is the complexion of their Religion HYPOCRITE is legibly written in the forehead of it They proclaim their shame to all that they converse with When they have said they believe the life to come they tell men by your ungodly worldly lives that they are dissemblers When their tongue hath loudly said that they are Christians their tongue and hand more loudly say that they are Hypocrites And when they profess their Faith but now and then in a lifeless outside piece of worship they profess their Hypocrisie all the day long in their impious neglect of God and their salvation in their carnal speeches in their worldly lives and in their enmity to the practice of the same Religion which they profess Their Hypocrisie is a web so thin and so transparent that it leaves their nakedness open to their shame They have not Profession enough to make a considerable cover for their unbelief They hide but their tongues the rest even heart and all is bare O the stupendious power of self love the wonderful blindness and stupidity of the ungodly the dreadfulness of the judgement of God in thus dâ—serting the wâ—lful resisters of his grace That ever men in other things of seeming wisdom should be such strangers to themselves and so deceived by themselves as to think they love the thing they hate and to think that their hearts are set upon Heaven when they neither love it nor the way that leadeth to it but are principally bent another way that when they arâ— strangers or enemies to a holy life they can yet make themselves believe that they are holy and that they seek that first which they never seek and make that the drift and business of their lives which was never the serious business of an hour O Hypocrites ask any impartial man of reason that sees your lives and hears your prayers whether you pray and live like men that believe that Heaven or Hell must be their reward Ask your families whether they perceive by your constant prayer and diligent endeavours and holy conversations that your hearts are set on a life to come It was a cutting answer of a late Apostate to one that told him of the unreasonableness of Infidels that denyed the life to come saith he There 's none in the world so unreasonable as you Christians that believe that there is an endless life of joy or misery to come and do no more to obtain the one and escape the other Did I believe such a life as this I would think all too little that I could do or suffer to make it sure Who sees the certainty greatness and eternity of the Crown of Life in the resolvedness fervency and constancy of your holy labour You take up with the picture of Sermons and Prayers and with the name of Christianity and holy obedience A little more Religion you will admit than a Parrot may learn or a Poppet may exercise Compare your care and labour and cost for Heaven and for this world That you believe the flattering deceitful world we see by your daily solicitousness about it You seek it you strive for it you fall out with all that stand in your way you are at it daily and have never done But who can see that you seriously believe another world you talk idly and wantonly and proudly by the hours but you talk of Heaven and holiness but by the minutes You do not turn the glass when you go to your unnecessary recreations or your vain discourse or at least you can stay when the glass is run But in hearing the most necessary truths of God or in praying for everlasting life the hour seems long to you and the tedious Preacher is your weariness and molestation You do not feast and play by the glass but if we do not preach and pray by it exactly but exceed our hour though in speaking of and for eternity we are your burden and put your languid patience to it as if we were doing you some intollerable wrong In worldly matters you are weary of giving but seldom of receiving you grudge at the asker but seldom at the giver But if the gift be spiritual and heavenly you are a weary to hear talk of it and expostulate the case with him that offereth it and he must shew by what authority he would do you good If by serious holy conference he would further your preparations for the life to come or help you to make sure of life eternal he is examined what power he hath to meddle with you and promote your salvation And perhaps he is snappâ—shly told he is a
world passeth away 1 Cor. 7.29 30. 3. Imploy your time as becomes Believers Faith only can acquaint you what an unconceivable weight doth lye upon this inch of hasty time As you behave your selves for a few daies it must go with you in joy or misery for ever You have your appointed time for your appointed work God hath turned the glass upon you much of it is run out already No price can call back one hour that you have lost No power or policy can retard its course Sic fugiunt fraeno non remorante dies When it comes to the last sand and time is gone you 'l know the worth of it You 'l then confess it should have seemed more precious in your eyes than to have been cast away upon things of nought O precious time more worth than all the riches of the world How highly is it valued by all at last And how basely is it esteemed new by the most Now it is no more worth with them than to be sold for unnecessary sports and ease and wasted in idleness and vain delights But then when it 's gone and all 's too late how loud would they cry if cryes could call back Time again O then what a mercy would it seem if God would try them once again and trust them but with another life or with Hezekiah's fifteen years or but with fifteen daies or hours upon such terms of grace as they held that life which they abused It amazeth me to observe the lamentable stupidity of the world how hard they beg for time when they think it is near an end and how carelesly they let it slide away when they have strength and faculties to improve it They are grievously afraid lest death deprive them of it and yet they are not afraid to deprive themselves of the use and fruit of it and to cast it away as contemptuously as if it were an useless thing I seldom come near a dying man but I hear him complain of the loss of Time and wish it were to spend again that it might be better valued and used And yet the living will not be warned O value Time as wise men while you have it and not as miserable fools when it is gone If our Lord said I must do the work of him that sent me while it is day for the night cometh when no man can work Joh. 9.4 What need then have such as we to be doing and make much of time O let not company mirth or business make you forget the work of Time Can you play or loiter away your hours with Eternity in your eye Get the Sun to stand still and Time to make a truce with you and to waste no more of the oyl of life before you lose another hour O what heads what hearts have all those men that standing against the verge of an endless world can think they have any time to spare Hath God given you too much If not why do you lose it If he hath why are you loth that he should shorten it You would not throw away your gold as contemptuously as you do your time when an hours time is more valuable than gold Frown on that company that would rob you of half an hours time Tell them you have something else to do than to feast or play or talk away your time unnecessarily O tell them you were not made for nothing You are in a race and must not stand still You are in a fight and must not cease Your work is great much of it is undone Your enemies are not idle Death will not stop the Judge is coming and still beholds you and Heaven or Hell are ready to receive our ending life and tell us how we spent our time And can you find time to spare You are not made as Weather-cocks to stand up on high for men to look at and by turning about with every wind to shew them which way it standeth Turn not your lives into that curse Levit. 26.20 You shall spend your strength in vain Believe it Time must be reviewed The day is near when every man of you had rather find it in your accounts so many hours spent in self-examination and holy meditation so many in reading the Word of God so many spent in fervent prayer and so many in doing good to others than so many spent in needless sports and pleasures so many in idleness and vain discourses and so many in the less necessary matters of the world Ask those that tempt you to mis-spend your time whether at death and Judgement they had rather themselves have a life of holy diligence to review or a life consumed in vanity and transitory delights You will not suffer impertinencies to interrupt your counsels and serious business in the world You 'l tell intruders that you are busie and cannot have while to attend them And are you going into Heaven or Hell and have but a few daies time of preparation God knows 〈…〉 and yet can you have while to pass this precious 〈…〉 vain O what would you not give ere long for one of the hours that you now mis-spend When the oath is performed Rev. 10.6 That Time shall be no longer Wonderful that men can find Time for any thing save that for which they had their time Non tam bene vivant sed quamdiu confiderant inquit Seneca cum omnibus pâ—ssit contingere ut bene vivant ut diu nulli To live well is both possible and necessary and yet is disregarded To live long is neither possible nor necessary and yet is sought by almost all Incipiunt vivere cum definendum est immo quidam ante desierunt vivere quam inciperent Sen. It 's unseasonable we should begin to live when we should make an end but it 's most unhappy to have made an end before they do begin Pulchrum est inquit idem consummare vitam ante mortem expectare secure reliquam temporis partem Do the great work and then you may comfortably spend the rest in waiting for the conclusion Yet you have time and leave and helps you may read and meditate and pray if you will but shortly Time will be no more O let not Satan insult over your carkasses and tormented souls and say Now it is too late Now murmure and repent as long as you will Now pray and cry and spare noâ— O use that Faith which beholdeth the invisible world and maketh future things as present and then delay and loiter if you can Then waste your hours in idleness or vanity if you dare either light or fire shall awake you 4. Suffer as Believers Fear not the wrath of man but indure as seeing him that is invisible Heb. 11.27 shew plainly that you seek a better Country vers 14 16. Read often Heb. 11 and 12 chapters Behold the Kingdom prepared and secured for you by Christ and then you will be indifferent which way the wind of humane favour or applause
increase the flame And Satan hath still the bellows in his hand He knoweth that if he can corrupt or win the Commander he can rout the Army and ruine them with the greatest ease It hath been Satans grand design since the Christian name was known on earth to advance the selfish interest of men against the interest of Christ and to entangle the Rulers of the world in some cause that Christ and his Word and Servants cannot favour and so to make them believe that there is a necessity on them to watch against and subdue the interest of Christ As if it were necessary that the shore be brought to the boat and not the boat to the shore And that the Physician be brought to the Patients mind or else destroyed or used as his enemy I am afraid to speak out the terrible words of God in Scripture that are against such persons lest you should misunderstand me and think I misapply them But Christ feareth no man and hath not spoken his Word in vain and his Messengers must be faithful for he will bear them out and preventive cautions are easier and safer than reprehensive corrasives I will but refer you to the texts that you may peruse them Matth. 21.44 Matth. 18.3.6 Matth. 25.40 45. Luke 18.7 Psal 2. Luke 19.27 Acts 9.4 5. 1 Thess 2.15 16. Read them with fear as the Words of God Blessed are those Rulers and Nations of the Earth that perceive and escape this pernicious snare of the grand deceiver that with all his subtilty and industry endeavoureth to breed quarrels and sow dissentions between them and the universal King The more God giveth to the carnal and unwise the more they think themselves engaged against him because by his commands he seems to take it from them again by crossing the flesh which would use it only to fulfil its lusts Like a Dog that fawneth on you till he have his bone and then snarleth at you lest you take it from him and will fly in your face if you offer to meddle with it Men readily confess that they have their wealth from God because it cannot be denyed and because they would use the name of God as a cover to hide their covetousness and unlawful waies of getting But if you judge by their usage of it and their returns to God you would think that they believed that they had nothing at all from God but some injuries and that all their benefits and good were from themselves The Turkish and Tartarian Emperour will say that all his grandeur and power is from God that by making it most Divine he may procure the more reverence and obedience to himself But when he hath said so for his own interest he useth the same power against God and his interest to the banishing of his Word and holy Worship and the forbidding the preaching of the Gospel of salvation and to the cherishing of tyranny pride and lust As if God had armed them against himself and made his Officers to be his enemies and gave them power that they might powerfully hinder mens salvation and made great to be great oppressors As a believing Pastor is a Priest that standeth between God and the people to mediate under the great Mediatour to receive from God his Word and Ordinances and deliver them to the flocks and to offer up supplications in their names to God So believing Governours of civil Societies or Families receive from God a power to rule the subjects for their good and they use it to make the subjects good that God may be pleased and honoured by all And the obedience which they require is such as may be given to God in them They take power from God to use it for God and are so much more excellent than the greatest of ambitious carnal Princes as the pleasing and honouring of God is a more excellent design and work than the gratifying of fleshly lust and the advancement of a lump of clay The Kingdoms of the world would all be used as the Kingdoms of the Lord if the everlasting Kingdom were well believed The families of men would be sanctified as Churches unto God if the eternal house not made with hands were truly taken for their home and their trade were to lay up a treasure in Heaven In Cities and Countries Brethren would dwell in holy peace and all concur in honouring God if once they were made fellow Citizens with the Saints and their Burgeship and conversation were in Heaven Ephes 2.19 Phil. 3.20 21. 6. Resist Temptations as Believers If you live by Faith then fight against the world and flesh by Faith Faith must be your helmet and the Word of Faith must be your shield Eph. 6.16 And your victory it self must be by Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 If Satan tell the flesh of the preferment riches or the pleasures of lust answer him with a believing foresight of Gods Judgement and the life to come Never look on the baits of sin alone but still look at once on God and on Eternity As a just Judge will hear both parties speak or see their evidences before he will determine So tell the Tempter that as you have heard what fleshly allurements can say you will see also what the Word of God saith and take a view of Heaven and Hell and then you will answer him 7. Rejoyce as Believers Can Faith set open the windows of the soul and no light of heavenly pleasures enter Can it peruse the Map of the Land of Promise or see and taste the bunch of Grapes without any sweetness to the soul That is the truest Belief of Heaven which maketh men likest those that are in Heaven And what is their character work and portion but the Joyes of Heavenly Light and Love Can we believe that we shall live in Heaven for ever Can we believe that very shortly we shall be there and not rejoyce in such believing I know we commonly say that the uncertainty of our proper title is the cause of all our want of joy But if that were all if that were the first and greatest cause and our belief of the promise it self were lively we should at least set our hearts on Heaven as the most delightful and desirable state and Love would work by more eager desires and diligent seekings till it had reacht assurance and cast out the hinderances of our joy How much would a meer Philosopher rejoyce if he could find out natural evidence of so much as we know by Faith You may perceive what their content in finding it would be by their excâ—eding pains in seeking The unwearied studies by day and night which many of them used with the contempt of the riches and greatness of the world do tell us how glad they would have been to have seen but half so far as we may If they could but discover more clearly and certainly the principles and elements and forms of Beings the nature of spirits the causes of motion
work on earth And that some should do the extraordinary work in laying the foundation and leaving a certain Rule and Order to the rest and that the rest should proceed to build hereupon and that the wisest and the best of men should be the Teachers and Guides of the rest unto the end 24. And how necessary was it that our Sun in glory should continually send down his beams and influence on the earth even the Spirit of the Father to be his constant Agent here below and to plead his cause and do his work on the hearts of men and that the Apostles who were to found the Church should have that Spirit in so conspicuous a degree and for such various works of Wonder and Power as might suffice to confirm their testimony to the world And that all others as well as they to the end should have the Spirit for those works of Love and Renovation which are necessary to their own obedience and salvation 25. How wisely it is ordered that he who is our King is Lord of all and able to defend his Church and to repress his proudest enemies 26. And also that he should be our final Judge who was our Saviour and Law-giver and made and sealed that Covenant of Grace by which we must be judged That Judgement may not be over dreadful but rather desirable to his faithful servants who shall openly be justified by him before all 27. How wisely hath God ordered it that when death is naturally so terrible to man we should have a Saviour that went that way before us and was once dead but now liveth and is where we must be and hath the keyes of death and Heaven that we may boldly go forth as to his presence and to the innumerable perfected spirits of the just and may commend our souls to the hands of our Redeemer and our Head 28. As also that this should be plainly revealed and that the Scriptures are written in a method and manner fit for all even for the meanest and that Ministers be commanded to open it and apply it by translation exposition and earnest exhortation that the remedy may be suited to the nature and extent of the disease And yet that there be some depths to keep presumptuous daring wits at a distance and to humble them and to exercise our diligence 29. As also that the life of faith and holiness should have much opposition in the world that its glory and excellency might the more appear partly by the presence of its contraries and partly by its exercise and victories in its tryals and that the godly may have use for patience and fortitude and every grace and may be kept the easilier from loving the world and taught the more to desire the presence of their Lord. 30. Lastly And how wisely is it ordered that God in Heaven from whom all cometh should be the end of all his graces and our duties and that himself alone should be our home and happiness and that as we are made by him and for him so we should live with him to his praise and in his love for ever And that there as we shall have both glorified souls and bodies so both might have a suitable glory and that our glorified Redeemer might there be in part the Mediatour of our fruition as here he was the Mediatour of acquisition I have recited hastily a few of the parts of this wondrous frame to shew you that if you saw them all and that in theâ—r true order and method you might not think strange that Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God Ephes 2.11 which was the first part of Gods Image upon the Christian Religion which I was to shew you But besides all this the WISDOM of God is expressed in the holy Scriptures thesâ— several waies 1. In the Revelation of things past which could not be known by any mortal man As the Creation of the world and what was therein done before man himself was made Which experience it self doth help us to believe because we see exceeding great probabilities that the world was not eternal nor of any longer duration than the Scriptures mention in that no place on earth hath any true monument of ancienter original and in that humane Sciences and Arts are yet so imperfect and such important additions are made but of late 2. In the Revelation of things distant out of the reach of mans discovery So Scripture History and Prophecy do frequently speak of preparations and actions of Princes and people afar of 3. In the Revelation of the secrets of mens hearts As Elisha told Gebeâ—i what he did at a distance Christ told Nathaniel what he said and where So frequently Christ told the Jews and his Disciples what they thought and shewed that he knew the heart of man To which we may add the searching power of the Word of God which doth so notably rip up the secrets of mens corruptions and may shew all mens hearts unto themselves 4. In the Revelation of contingent things to come which is most frequent in the Prophecies and Promises of the Scripture not only in the Old Testament as Daniel c. but also in the Gospel When Christ foretelleth his death and resurrection and the usage and successes of his Apostles and promiseth them the miraculous gifts of the Spirit and foretold Peters thrice denying him and foretold the grievous destrâ—ction of Jerusalem with other such like clear predictions 5. But nothing of all these predictions doth shine so clearly to our selves as those great Promises of Christ which are fulfilled to our selves in all generations Even the Promises and Prophetical descriptions of the great work of Conversion Regeneration or Sanctification upon mens souls which is wrought in all Ages just according to the delineations of it in the world All the humblings the repentings the desires the faith the joyes the prayers and the answers of them which were foretold and was found in the first Believers are performed and given to all true Christians to this day To which may be added all the Prophecies of the extent of the Church of the conversion of the Kingdoms of the world to Christ and of the oppositions of the ungodly fort thereto and of the persecutions of the followers of Christ which are all fulfilled 6. The WISDOM of God also is clearly manifested in the concatenation or harmony of all these Revelations Not only that there is no real contradiction between them but that they all conjunctly compose one entire frame As the age of man goeth on from infancy to maturity and nature fitteth her endowments and provisions accordingly to each degree so hath the Church proceeded from its infancy and so have the Revelations of God been suited to its several times Christ who was promised to Adam and the Fathers before Moses for the first two thousand years and signified by their Sacrifices was
these things and to expound all these Solemnities Laws and Ceremonies to them so that the frame of Church and State and Families was a preservative hereof 5. But to pass by all the rest in the Old Testament the Incarnation of Christ was such a work of Omnipotent Love as caâ—not by us be comprehended That God should be united to humanity in person that humanity should thus be advanced into union with the Deity and Man be set above the Angels that a Virgin should conceive that men from the East should be led thither to worship an Infant by the conduct of a Star which Caesarius thinketh was one of those Angels or Spirits which are called a flame of fire Psal 104.4 That Angels from Heaven should declare his nativity to the Shepherds and celebrate it with their praises that John Baptist should be so called to be his forerunner and Elizabeth Zachary Simeon and Anna should so prophesie of him That the Spirit should be seen descending on him at his Baptism and the voice be heard from Heaven which owned him that he should fast forty daies and nights and that he should be transfigured before his three Disciples on the Mount and Moses and Elias seen with him in that glory and the voice from Heaven again bear witness to him These and many such like were the attestations of Divine Omnipotency to the truth of Christ 6. To these may be next joyned the whole course of miracles performed by Christ in healing the sick and raising the dead and in many other miraculous acts which are most of the substance of the Gospel-history and which I have recited together in my Reasons of the Christian Religion see Heb. 2.2 3 4. 7. And to these may be added the Power which was given over all the creatures to Christ our Mediatour All power in Heaven and Earth was given him Joh. 17.2 13.3 Mat. 28.19 Rom. 14.9 Ephes 1.22 23. He was made Head over all things to the Church and all principalities and powers were put under him And this was not barely asserted by him but demonstrated He shewed his power over the Devils in casting them out and his power over Angels by their attendance and his power of life and death by raising the dead and his power over all diseases by healing them and his power over the winds and waters by appeasing them and his power over our food and natures by turning water into wine and by feeding many thousands miraculously yea and his power over them into whose hands he was resolved to yield himself by restraining them till his hour was come and by making them all fall to the ground at his name and his power over Sun and Heaven and Earth by the darkening of the Sun and the trembling of the Earth and the rending of the Rocks and of the Vail of the Temple Mat. 27.45 51. And his power over the dead by the rising of the bodies of many Mat. 27.52 And his power over the Saints in Heaven by the attendance of Moses and Elias and his power to forgive sins by taking away the penal maladies and his power to change hearts and save souls by causing his Disciples to leave all and follow him at a word and Zacheus to receive him and believe and the thief on the cross to be converted and to enter that day into Paradise 8. And his own Resurrection is an undoubted attestation of Divine Omnipotency If God gave him such a victory over death and raised him to life when men had killed him and rolled a stone upon his Sepulchre and sealed and guarded it there needeth no further evidence of the Power of God impressing and attesting the Christian Religion than that which ascertaineth to us the truth of Christs Resurrection For he was declared to be the Son of God by POWER by resurrection from the dead Rom. 1.4 9. And his bodily appearance to his congregated Disciples when the doors were shut his miracle at their fishing his walking on the Sea his vanishing out of their sight Luke 24. when he had discoursed with the two Disciples his opening their hearts to understand his Word c. do all shew this part of Gods Image on our Religion even his Power 10. And so doth his bodily ascending into Heaven before the face of his Disciples Acts 1. 11. But especially the sending down the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples according as he promised To cause them that were before so low in knowledge to be suddenly inspired with languages and with the full understanding of his own will and with unanimity and concord herein this made his Disciples the living monuments and effects of his own Omnipotency Acts 2. 12. And accordingly all the miracles which they did by this power recorded partly in the Acts of the Apostles or rather the Acts of Paul by Luke who was his companion which you may there read and no doubt but other Apostles in their measures did the like as Paul though they are not recorded for they had all the same Promise and Spirit This is another impression of POWER 13. Whereto must be added the great and wonderful gifts of communicating the same Spirit or doing that upon which God would give it to those converted Believers on whom they laid their hands which Simon Magus would fain have bought with money Acts 8. To enable them to speak with tongues to heal diseases to prophesie c. as they themselves had done which is a great attestation of Omnipotency 14. And the lamentable destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans foretold by Christ was an attestation of Gods POWER in the revenge or punishment of their unbelief and putting Christ to death 15. And so was the great fortitude and constancy of Believers who underwent all persecutions so joyfully as they did for the sake of Christ which was the effect of the corroborating Power of the Almighty 16. And so was the Power which the Apostles had to execute present judgements upon the enemies of the Gospel as Elimas and Simon Magus and on the abusers of Religion as Ananias and Saphyra and on many whom they excommunicated and delivered up to Satan 17. The same evidence is found in Christs Legislation as an universal Soveraign making Laws for heart and life for all the world Taking down the Laws of the Jewish Polity and Ceremonies which God by Moses had for a time set up Commanding his Ministers to proclaim his Laws to all the world and Princes and people to obey them And by these Laws conferring on Believers no less than forgiveness and salvation and binding over the impenitent to everlasting punishment 18. But the great and continued impress of Gods Power is that which together with his Wisdom and Love is made and shewed in the conveâ—sion of mens souls to God by Christ You may here first consider the numbers which were suddenly converted by the preaching of the Apostles at the first And in how little time there were Churches planted
both to the Father and to us and so of our NEARNESS to God in and by him Our distance is the lamentable fruit of our Apostacy which inferreth our fears and estrangedness and backwardness to draw near to God It causeth our ignorance of him and our false conceits of his will and works it greatly hindereth both love and confidence whereas the apprehension of our nearness to God will do much to cure all these evils As it is the misery of the proud that God looketh on them as afar off that is with strangeness and abhorrence and disdain Psal 138.6 And accordingly they shall be far off from the blessed ones hereafter Luke 16.23 So it is the happiness of Believers to be nigh to God in Jesus Christ who condescended to be nigh to us which is our preparation to be yet nearer to him for ever Psal 148.14 34.18 145.18 Ephes 2.13 It giveth the soul more familiar thoughts of God who seemed before to be at an inaccessible distance which is part of the boldness of access and confidence mentioned Ephes 3.12 2.18 Rom. 5.2 Heb. 10.19 We may come boldly to the Throne of grace Heb. 4.16 And it greatly helpeth us in the work of Love to think how near God is come to us in Christ and how near he hath taken the humane nature unto him When a sinner looketh at God only as in himself and as he is estranged from the guilty he is amazed and confounded as if God were quite out of the reach of our love but when he thinketh how he hath voluntarily come down into our flesh that he might be man and be familiar with man and what a wonderful marriage the Divine Nature hath made with the humane this wonderfully reconcileth the heart to God and maketh the thoughts of him more sweet and acceptable If the life of faith be a dwelling in God and God in us and a walking with God 1 Joh. 3.24 4.12 15 16. Ephes 3.17 Gen. 17.1 24.40 5.22 6.9 Heb. 11.5 Then must we perceive our nearness to God The just apprehension of this nearness in Christs Incarnation and Relation to us is the chief means to bring us to the nearness of love and heavenly conversation Col. 3.1 3 4. Direct 8. Make Christ therefore the Mediation for all your practical thoughts of God The thoughts of God will be strange to us through our distance and terrible through our guilt if we look not upon him through the prospective of Christs humanity and cross God out of Christ is a consuming fire to guilty souls As our acceptance must be through the Beloved in whom he is well pleased so our thoughts must be encouraged with the sense of that acceptance and every thought must be led up to God and emboldened by the Mediatour Mat. 3.17 17.5 12.18 Ephes 1.6 Heb. 2.9 10 12 13 17. Direct 9. Never come to God in prayer or any other act of worship but by the Mediation of the Son and put all your prayers as into his hand that he may present them to the Father There is no hoping for any thing from God to sinners but by Christ and therefore there is no speaking to God but by him not only in his Name but also by his Mediation And this is the exercise of his Priesthood for us by his heavenly intercession so much spoken of by the Holy Ghost in the Epistle to the Hebrews Seeing we have a great High Priest that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.14 16. Direct 10. Hear every word of Scripture Precept and Ministerial Exhortation consonant to the Scripture as sent to us by Christ and from the Father by him as the appointed Teacher of the Church Hear Christ in his Gospel and his Ministers and hear God the Father in the Son Take heed of giving only a slight and verbal acknowledgement of the voice of Christ whilest you really are more taken with the Preachers voice as if he had a greater share in the Sermon than Christ hath The voice in the holy Mount which Peter witnesseth that he heard 2 Pet. 1.17 was This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him Mat. 17.5 And it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people Acts 3.23 When ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us ye received it not as the Word of men but as it is in truth the Word of God which worketh effectually in you that believe 1 Thes 2.13 The Sheep will follow him for they know his voice a stranger they will not follow John 10.4 5. Direct 11. Take every mercy from God as from the hand of Christ both as procured by his Cross and as delivered by his Mediatory Administration It is still supposed that the giving of the Son himself by the Father to this office is excepted as presupposed But all subsequent particular mercies are both procured for us and given to us by the Mediator Yet is it nevertheless from God the Father nor doth it evertheless but the more fully signifie his love But the state of sinners alloweth them no other way of communication from God for their benefit and happiness but by one who is more near and capable to God who from him may convey all blessings unto them Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in things heavenly in Christ Ephes 1.3 He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Rom. 8.32 Through the knowledge of him the Divine Power giveth us all things that pertain to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1.3 God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son 1 John 5.10 11. All things are delivered into his hand Joh. 13.3 17.2 Therefore receive every particular mercy for soul and body as from the blood and from the present mediation of Christ that you may rightly understand it and have it as sanctified and sweetned by Christ Direct 12. Let Faith take occasion by every sin to renew your sense of the want of Christ and to bring you to him to meditate and grant you a renewed pardon Therefore entertain not their mistake who tell men that all sin past present and to come is fully pardoned at once whether it be before you were born in Gods decree or Christs satisfaction or at the time of your conversion nor theirs who teach that Christ pardoneth only sins before conversion but as for all that are committed afterward he doth prevent the need of pardon by preventing all guilt and obligation to punishment except meer temporal chastisement The preparation
be plainlier expounded or that distribution is not sound If by Grace be meant all the extrinsick medicinal preparations made by Christ and if by Glory be meant only the Holiness of the soul the sense is good But in common use those words are otherwise understood Sanctification is usually ascribed to the Holy Ghost but Glorification in Heaven is the perfective effect of all the three persons in our state of perfect union with God Rom. 15.16 Titus 3.5 6. But yet in the work of Sanctification it self the Trinity undividedly concur And so in the sanctifying and raising the Church the Apostle distinctly calleth the act of the Father by the name of Operation and the work of the Son by the name of Administration and the part of the Holy Ghost by the name of Gifts 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. And in respect to these sanctifying Operations of God ad extra the same Apostle distributeth them thus 2 Cor. 13.14 The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Where by God seemeth to be meant all the persons in the Trinity in their perfection but especially the Father as the Fountain of Love and as expressing Love by the Son and the Spirit and by the Grace of Christ is meant all that gracious provision he hath made for mans salvation and the Relative application of it by his intercession together with his mission of the holy Spirit And by the Communion of the Spirit is meant that actual communication of Life Light and Love to the soul it self which is eminently ascribed to the Spirit Direct 9. The Spirit it self is given to true Believers and not only grace from the Spirit Not that the Essence of God or the person of the Holy Ghost is capable of being contained in any place or removing to or from a place by local motion But 1. The Holy Ghost is given to us Relatively as our Covenanting Sanctifier in the Baptismal Covenant We have a Covenant-right to him that is to his operations 2. And the Spirit it self is present as the immediate Operator not so immediate as to be without Means but so immediately as to be no distant Agent but by proximate attingency not only ratione virtutis but also ratione suppositi performeth his operations If you say so he is present every where I answer but he is not a present Operator every where alike We are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost both because he buildeth us up for so holy a use and because he also dwelleth in us 1 Cor. 6.19 Direct 10. By the sanctification commonly ascribed to the Holy Ghost is meant that recovery of the soul to God from whom it is fallen which consisteth in our primitive Holiness or devotedness to God but summarily in the Love of God as God Direct 11. And Faith in Christ is oft placed as before it not as if the Spirit were no cause of Faith nor as if Faith were no part of our saving special grace nor as if any had saving Faith before they had Love to God but because as Christ is the Mediatour and way to the Father so Faith in him is but a mediate grace to bring us up to the Love of God which is the final perfective grace And because though they are inseparably complicate yet some acts of Faith go before our special Love to God in order of nature though some others follow after it or go with it It is a question which seemeth very difficult to many whether Love to God or Faith in Christ must go first whether in time or order of nature For if we say that Faith in Christ must go first then it seemeth that we take not Faith or Christ as a Means to bring us to God as our End for our End is Deus amatus God as beloved and to make God our End and to love him are inseparable We first love the good which appeareth to us and then we chuse and use the Means to attain it and in so doing we make that our End which we did love so that it is the first loved for it self and then made our End Now if Christ be not used as a Means to God or as our Vltimate End then he is not believed in or used as Christ and therefore it is no true Faith And that which hath not the true End is not the true act or grace in question nor can that be any special grace at all which hath not God for his Vltimate End On both which accounts it can be no true Faith The intentio finis being before the choice or use of means though the assecution be after And yet on the other side if God be loved as our End before we believe in Christ as the means then we are sanctified before we believe And then faith in Christ is not the Means of our first special Love to God And the consequents on both parts are intollerable and how are they to be avoided Consider here 1. You must distinguish betwixt the assenting or knowing act of faith and the consenting or chusing act of it in the will 2. And between Christ as he is a Means of Gods chusing and using and as he is a means of our chusing and using And so I answer the case in these Propositions 1. The knowledge of a Deity is supposed before the knowledge of Christ as a Mediator For no man can believe that he is a Teacher sent of God nor a Mediator between us and God nor a Sacrifice to appease Gods wrath who doth not believe first that there is a God 2. In this belief or knowledge of God is contained the knowledge of his Essential Power Wisdom and Goodness and that he is our Creator and Governour and that we have broken his Laws and that we are obnoxious to his Justice and deserve punishment for our sins All this is to be known before we believe in Christ as the Mediatour 3. Yet where Christianity is the Religion of the Country it is Christ himself by his Word and Ministers who teacheth us these things concerning God But it is not Christ as a Means chosen or used by us to bring us to the Love of God for no man can chuse or use a Means for an End not yet known or intended but it is Christ as a Means chosen and used by God to bring home sinners to himself even as his dying for us on the Cross was 4. The soul that knoweth all this concerning God cannot yet love him savingly both because he wanteth the Spirit to effect it and because a holy sin-hating God engaged in Justice to damn the sinner is not such an object as a guilty soul can love but it must be a loving and reconciled God that is willing to forgive 5. When Christ by his Word and Ministers hath taught a sinner both what God is in himself and what he is to us and what we have deserved and
not by Faith chosen and used by us under the notion of a Mâ—diatour or Means to our first act of love and consent but is a Means to that of the Fathers chusing only but is in that first consent chosen by us for the standing means of our Justification and Glory and of all our following exercise and increase of love to God and our sanctification so that it is only the assenting act of faith and not the electing act which is the efficient cause of oâ— very first act of Love to God and of our first degree of sanctification and thus it is that Faith is called the seed and mother grace But it is not that saving Faith which is our Christianity and the condition of Justification and of Glory till it come up to a covenant-consent of heart and take in the foresaid acts of Repentance and Love to God as our God and ultimate end The observation of many written mistakes about the order of the work of grace and the ill and contentious consequents that have followed them hath made me think that this true and accurate decision of this case is not unuseful or unnecessary Direct 12. The Holy Ghost so far concurred with the eternal Word in our Redemption that he was the perfecting Operator in the Conception the Holiness the Miracles the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Of his Conception it is said Mat. 1.20 For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost And vers 18. She was found with child of the Holy Ghost And of his holy perfection as it is said Luke 2.52 that he increased in wisdom and stature and favour with God and men meaning those positive perfections of his humane nature which were to grow up with nature it self and not the supply of any culpable or privative defects so when he was baptized the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him Luke 3.22 And Luke 4.1 it is said Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost c. Isa 11.2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the Spirit of wisdom and understanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and shall make him quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord c. Joh. 3.34 For God giveth not the Spirit by measure to him Acts 1.2 After that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments to the Apostles whom he had chosen Rom. 1.4 And was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness that is the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead Mat. 12.28 If I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God c. Luke 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal c. Isa 61.1 In all this you see how great the work of the Holy Spirit was upon Christ himself to fit his humane nature for the work of our redemption and actuate him in it though it was the Word only which was made flesh and dwelt among us John 1.3 Direct 13. Christ was thus filled with the Spirit to be the Head or quickening Spirit to his body and accordingly to fit each member for its peculiar office And therefore the Spirit now given is called the Spirit of Christ as communicated by him Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of hiâ— Joh. 7.37 This spake he of the Spirit which they that believe should receive viz. it is the water of life which Christ will give them 1 Cor. 15.45 The last Adam was made a quickening Spirit Gal. 4.6 God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts whereby we cry Abba Father Phil. 1.19 Through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ See also Ephes 1.22 23. 3.17 18 19. 2.18 22. 4.3 12 16. 1 Cor. 12 c. Direct 14. The greatest extraordinary measure of the Spirit was given by him to his Apostles and the Primitive Christians to be the seal of his own truth and power and to fit them to found the first Churches and to convince unbelievers and to deliver his will on record in the Scriptures infallibly to the Church for future times It would be tedious to cite the proofs of this they are so numerous take but a few Matth. 28.20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you that 's the commission Mark 16.17 And these signs shall follow them that believe c. Joh. 20.22 Receive ye the Holy Ghost c. 14.26 But the Comforter the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Joh. 16.13 When the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth c. Heb. 2.4 God also bearing them witness both with signs and wâ—nders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Direct 15. And as such gifts of the Spirit was given to the Apostles as their â—ffice required so thâ—se sanctifying graces or that spiritual Life Light and Love are given by it to all true Christians which their calling and salvation doth require John 3.5 6. Except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven That which is born of the flâ—sh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Heb. 12.14 Without holiness none shall see God Rom. 8.8 9 10 14. They that are in the flesh cannot please God But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his See also v. 1 3 4 5 6 7 c. Titus 3.5 6 7. He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life But the testimonies of thâ—s truth are more numerous than I may recite Direct 16. By all this it appeareth that the Holy Ghost is both Christs great witness objectively in the world by which it is that he is owned of God and proved to be true and also his Advocate or great Agent in the Church both to indite the Scriptures and to sanctifie souls So that no man can be a Christian indeed without these three 1. The objective witness of the Spirit to the truth of Christ 2. The Gospel taught by the Spirit in the Apostles 3. And the quickening illuminating and sanctifying work of the Spirit upon their souls Direct 17. It is therefore in these respects that we are baptizâ—d into the Name of the Holy Ghost as well as of the Father and the Son
true Suppose that the Law do pardon a fellon if he can read as a Clerk and one that is a fellon be in doubt whether his reading will serve or not this is not to deny belief to the pardoning act of the Law Suppose one promise a yearly stipend to all that are of full one and twenty years of age in the Town or Country To doubt of my age is not to doubt of the truth of the promise Object But do not Protestant Divines conclude against the Papists that saving Faith must be a particular application of Christ and the Promise to ourselves and not only a general assent Answ It is very true and the closer that application is the better But the application which all sound Divines in this point require as necessary in saving Faith is neither an assurance nor perswasion that your own sins are already pardoned or that they ever will be But it is 1. A belief that the Promise of pardon to all believers is so universal as that it includeth you as well as others and promiseth and offereth you pardon and life if you will believe in Christ 2. And it is a consent or willingness of heart that Christ be yours and you be his to the ends proposed in the Gospel 3. And it is a practical Trust in his sufficiency as chusing him for the only Mediatour resolving to venture your souls and all your hopes upon him Though yet through your ignorance of your selves you may think that you do not this thing in sincerity which indeed you do yea and much fear through melancholy or temptation that you never shall do it and consequently never shall be saved He that doubteth of his own salvation not because he doubteth of the truth of the Gospel but because he doubteth of the sincerity of his own heart may be mistaken in himself but is not therefore an unbeliever as is said before If you would know whether you believe the Promises truly answer me these particular questions 1. Do you believe that God hath promised that all true Believers shall be saved 2. Do you believe that if you are or shall be a true Believer you shall be saved 3. Do you chuse or desire God as your only happiness and end to be enjoyed in Heaven and Christ as the only Mediatour to procure it and his holy Spirit as his Agent in your souls to sanctifie you fully to the Image of God Are you truly willing that thus it should be And if God be willing will not you refuse it 4. Do you turn away from all other waies of felicity and chuse this alone to venture all your hopes upon and resolve to seek for none but this and to venture all on God and Christ though yet you are uncertain of your sincerity and salvation why this makes up true saving faith 5. And I would further ask you Do you fear damnation and Gods wrath or not If not what troubleth you and why complain you If you do tell me then whether you do believe Gods threatning that he that believeth not shall be damned or not If you do not what maketh you fear damnation Do you fear it and not believe that there is any such thing If you do believe it how can you chuse but believe also that every true Believer shall be saved Is God true in his Threatnings and not in his Promises This must force you plainly to confess that you do believe Gods Promises but only doubt of your own sincerity and consequently of your salvation which is more a weakness in your hope than in your faith or rather chiefly in your acquaintance with your self Direct 8. Yet still dwell most upon Gods Promises in the exercise of love desire and thankfulness and use all your fear about the threatnings but in a second place to further and not to hinder the work of love Direct 9. Let faith interpret all Gods Judgements meerly by the light of the threatnings of his Word and do not gather any conclusions from them which the Word affordeth not or alloweth not Gods Judgements may be dangerously misunderstood CHAP. VII How to exercise Faith about Pardon of sin and Justification THE practice of Faith about our Justification is hindered by so many unhappy controversies and heresies that what to do with them here in our way is not very easie to determine Should I omit the mention of them I leave most that I write for either under that disease it self or the danger of it which may frustrate all the rest which I must say For the errours hereabout are swarming in most quarters of the Land and are like to come to the caâ—s of most that are studious of these matters so that an antidote to most and a vomit to the rest is become a matter of necessity to the success of all our practical Directions And yet many cannot endure to be troubled with difficulties who are slothful and must have nothing set before them that will cost them much study and many peaceable Christians love not any thing that soundeth like controversie or strife As others that are Sons of contention relish nothing else But averseness must give place to necessity If the Leprosie arise the Priest must search it and the Physician must do his best to cure it notwithstanding their natural averseness to it Though I may be as averse to write against errours as the Reader is to read what I write we must both blame that which causeth the necessity but not therefore deny our necessary duty But yet I will so far gratifie them that need no more as to put the more practical Directions first that they may pass by the heap of errours â—â—ter if their own judgements prevail not against their unwillingness Direct 1. Vnderstand well what need you have of pardon of sin and Justification by reason of your guilt and of Gods Law and Justice and the everlasting punishment which is legally your due 1. It must be a sensible awakening practical knowledge of our own great necessity which must teach us to value Christ as a Saviour and to come to him in that empty sick and weary plight as is necessary in those who will make use of him for their supply and cure Matth. 9.12 11.28 29. A superficial speculative knowledge of our sin and misery will prepare us but for a superficial opinionative faith in Christ as the remedy But a true sense of both will teach us to think of him as a Saviour indeed 2. Original sin and actual the wickedness both of the heart and life even all our particular sins of omission and commission and all their circumstances and aggravations are the first reason of our great necessity of pardon And therefore it cannot but be a duty to lay them to heart as particularly as we can to make that necessity and Christs redemption the better understood Acts 2.37 Acts 2â— 8 9 c. 3. The wrath of God and the miseries of this life
that ever will be committed is forgiven absolutely 6. The kind of our presenâ— Justification is imperfect it being but in Covenant-title and some part of execution the full and peâ—fâ—ct sentence and execution being at the day of Judgment I leave them therefore to say Christs Righteousness imputed to us is perfect therefore we are as perfectly just and justified as Christ who know not what Imputation here is nor that Christs personal Righteousness is not given to us as proprietors in it self but in the effects and who know not the difference between believing and blaspheming and making our selves as so many Christs to our selves and that know not what need they have of Christ or of Faith or Prayer or of any holy endeavour for any more Pardon and Righteousness or Justification than they have already Or who thinke that David in his Adultery and Murder was as perfectly pardoned and justified as he will be in Heaven at last And in a word who know not the difference between Earth and Heaven Errour 12. That Christ justifieth us only as a Priest Or say others only as obeying and satisfying Contr. Christ merited our Justification in his state of humiliation as the Mediator subjected to the Law and perfectly obeying it and as a sacrifice for sin But this is not justifying us Christ offered that sacrifice as the High Priest of the Church or world But this was not justifying us Christ made us the New Covenant as our King and as the great Prophet of the Father or Angel of the Covenant Mal. 3.1 And this Covenant giveth us our pardon and title to impunity and to life eternal And Christ as our King and Judge doth justifie us by a Judiciary Sentence and also by the execution of that sentence so that the relations most eminently appear in our Justification are all excluded by the foresaid errour Errour 13. That we are justified only by the first act of Faith and all our believing afterwards to the end of our lives are no justifying acts at all Contr. Indeed if the question be only about the Name of Justifying if you will take it only for our first change into a state of righteousness by pardon it is true But the following actâ— of Faith are of the same use and need to the continuing of our Justification or state of Righteousness as the first act was for the beginning of it Errour 14. That the continuance of our Justification needeth no other conditions to be by us performed than the continuance of that Faith on which it was begun Contr. Where that first Faith continueth there our Justification doth continue But that Faith never continueth without sincere obedience to Christ and that obedience is part of the condition of the continuance or not losing our Justification as is proved before and at large elsewhere The Faith which in Baptism we profess and by which we have our first Justification or Covenant-right is an accepting of Christ as our Saviour and Lord to be obeyed by us in the use of his saving remedies and we there vow and covenant future obedience And as our marriage to Christ or Covenant-making is all the condition of our first right to him and his benefits without any other good works or obedience so our Marriage-fidelity or Covenant keeping is part of the condition of our continuance herein or not losing it by a divorce John 15. Col. 1.23 c. Errour 15. That Faith is no condition of our part in Christ and our Justification but only one of Gods gifts of the Covenant given with Christ and Justification Errour 16. That the Covenant of Grace hath no conditions on our part but only donatives on Gods part Errour 17 That if the Covenant had any conditions it were not free And that every condition is a meritorious cause or at least some cause Contr. All these I have confuted at large elsewhere and proved 1. That Faith is a proper condition of those benefits which God giveth us by the conditional Covenant of Grace but not of all the benefits which he any other way giveth us It was not the condition of his giving Christ to live and die for us nor of his giving us the Gospel or this Covenant it self nor of his giving us Preachers or of the first motions of his Spirit nor was Faith the condition of the Faithâ—â—â—elf â—â—â—elf because all these are not given us in that way by that Covenant but absolutely as God shall please 2. That some Promises of God of the last mentioned gifts have no condition The promises of giving a Saviour to the world and the promise of giving and continuing the Gospel in the world and of converting many by it in the world and of making them Believers and giving them new hearts and bringing them to salvation c. have no conditions But these are promises made some of them to Christ only and some of them to fallen mankind or the world in general or predictions what God will do by certain men unborn unnamed and not described called the Elect. But all this giveth no title to Pardon or Justification or Salvation to any one person at all Remember therefore once for all that the Covenant which I still mean by the Covenant of Grace is that which God offereth men in Baptism by the acceptance whereof we become Christians 3. That Gods gift of a Saviour and New Covenant to the world are so free as to be without any condition But Gods gift of Christ with all his benefits of Justification Adoption c. to individual persons is so free as to be without and contrary to our desert but not so free as to be without any condition And that he that will say to God Thy grace of pardon is not free if thou wilt not give it me but on condition that I accept it yea or desire it or ask it shall prove a contemner of grace and a reproacher of his Saviour and not an exalter of free grace There is no inconsistency for God to be the giver of grace to cause us to believe and accept of Christ and yet to make a deed of gift of him to all on condition of that Faith and acceptance no more than it is inconsistent to give Faith and Repentance and to command them of both which the objecters themselves do not seem to doubt For he maketh both his command and his conditional form of Promise to be his chosen means and most wisely chosen of working in us the thing commanded 4. That a condition as a condition is no cause at all much less a meritorious cause But only the non-performance of it suspendeth the donation of the Covenant by the will of the Donor Or râ—â—her it is the Donors will that suspendeth it till the condition be done And some conditions signifie no more than a term of time and some in the matter of them and not in the form are a not-demeriting or not-abusing the Giver or not-despising the gift
11. Exod. 12.29 Deut. 26.22 Josh 4.6 21 22. 22 24 27. Therefore the writing of Church-history is the duty of all ages because Gods Works are to be known as well as his Word And as it is your forefathers duty to write it it is the childrens duty to learn it or else the writing it would be vain He that knoweth not what state the Church and world is in and hath been in in former ages and what God hath been doing in the world and how errour and sin have been resisting him and with what success doth want much to the compleating of his knowledge 5. And he must have prudence to discern particular cases and to consider of all circumstances and to compare things with things that he may discern his duty and the seasons and manner of it and may know among inconsistent seeming duties which is to be preferred and when and what circumstances or accidents do make any thing a duty which else would be no duty or a sin and what accidents make that a sin which without them would be a duty This is the knowledge which must make a Christian entire or compleat 2. And in his Will there must be 1. A full resignation and submission to the Will of God his Owner and a full subjection and obedience to the Will of God his Governour yielding readily and constantly and resolutâ—ly to the commands of God as the Scholar obeyeth his Master and as the second wheel in the clock is moved by the first And a close adhering to God as his chief Good by a Thankful Reception of his Benefits and a desirous seeking to enjoy and glorifie him and please his Will In a word loving him as God and taking our chiefest complacency in pleasing him in loving him and being loved of him 2. And in the same will there must be a well regulated Love to all Gods works according as he is manifested or glorified in them To the humanity of our Redeemer to the glory of Heaven as it is a created thing to the blessed Angels and perfected spirits of the just to the Scripture to the Church on earth to the Saints the Pastors the Rulers the holy Ordinances to all mankind even to our enemies to our selves our souls our bodies our relations our estates and mercies of every rank 3. And herewithall must be a hatred of every sin in our selves and others Of former sin and present corruption with a penitential displicence and grief and of possible sin with a vigilancy and resistance to avoid it 3. And in the Affections there must be a vivacity and sober fervency answering to all these motions of the Will in Love Delight Desire Hope Hatred Sorrow Aversation and Anger the complexion of all which is godly Zeal 4. In the vital and executive Power of the soul there must be a holy activity promptitude and fortitude to be up and doing and to set the sluggish faculties on work and to bring all knowledge and volitions into practice and to assault and conquer enemies and difficulties There must be the Spirit of Power though I know that word did chiefly then denote the Spirit of Miracles yet not only and of Love and of a sound mind 5. In the outward members there must be by use a habit of ready obedient execution of the souls commands As in the tongue a readiness to pray and praise God and declare his Word and edifie others and so in the rest 6. In the senses and appetite there must by use be a habit of yielding obedience to Reason that the senses do not rebel and rage and bear down the commands of the mind and will 7. Lastly In the Imagination there must be a clearness or purity from filthiness malice covetousness pride and vanity and there must be the impressions of things that are good and useful and a ready obedience to the superiour faculties that it may be the instrument of holiness and not the shop of temptations and sin nor a wild unruly disordered thing And the harmony of all these must be as well observed as the matter As 1. There must be a just Order among them every duty must keep its proper place and season 2. There must be a just proportion and degree some graces must not wither whilst others alone are cherished nor some duties take up all our heart and time whilst others are almost laid by 3. There must be a just activity and exercise of every grace 4. And a just conjunction and respect to one another that every one be used so as to be a help to all the rest I. The Order 1. Of Intellectual graces and duties must be this 1. In order of Time the things which are sensible are known before the things which are beyond our sight and other senses 2. Beyond these the first thing known both for certainly and for excellency is that there is a God 3. This God is to be known as one Being in his three Essential Principles Vital Power Intellect and Will 4. And these as in their Essential Perfections Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness or Love 5. And also in his perfections called Modal and Negative c. as Immensity Eternity Independancy Immutability c. 6. God must be next known in his Three Personalities as the Father the Word or Son and the Spirit 7. And these in their three Causalities efficient dirigent and final 8. And in their three great works Creation Redemption Sanctification or Perfection producing Nature Grace and Glory or our Persons Medicine and Health 9. And God who created the world is thereupon to be known in his Relations to it as our Creator in Unity and as our Owner Ruler and Chief Good efficient dirigent and final in a Trinity of Relations You must know how the Infinite Vital Power of the Father created all things by the Infinite Wisdom of the Word or Son and by the Infinite Goodness and Love of the holy Spirit As the Son redeemed us as the eternal Wisdom and Word Incarnate sent by the eternal Vital-Power of the Father to reveal and communicate the eternal Love in the Holy Ghost And as the Holy Ghost doth sanctifie and perfect us as proceeding and sent from the Power of the Father and the Wisdom of the Son to shed abroad the Love of God upon our hearts c. 10. Next to the knowledge of God as Creator is to be considered the World which he created and especially the Intectellual Creatures Angels or heavenly Spirits and Men. Man is to be known in his person or constitution first and afterward in his appointed course and in his end and perfection 11. In his constitution is to be considered 1. His Being or essential parts 2. His Rectitude or Qualities 3. His Relations 1. To his Creatour And 2. To his fellow-creatures 12. His essential parts are his soul and body His soul is to be known in the Vnity of its Essence and Trinity of essential faculties which is its natural
and sellers from Christs Temple their merchandize is exposed without shame and their signs set forth and the trade of getting preferments openly professed and it is enough to wipe off all the shame to put some venerable titles upon this Den of thieves But the Lord whom we wait for will once more come and cleanse his Temple But who may abide the day of his coming for he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sâ—pe and will throughly purge the Sons of Levi Mal. 3.1 2 3 4. If talking against worldliness would prove that the world is overcome and that God is dearest to the soul then Preachers will be the happiest men on earth But it 's easier to commend God than to love him above all and easier to cry out against the world than to have a heart that is truly weaned from it and set upon a better world Object 10. But all this belongeth only to them that are in prosperity but I am poor and therefore it is nothing to me Answ Many a one loveth prosperity that hath it not And such are doubly sinful that will love a world which loveth not them Even a world of poverty misery and distress Something you would have done if you had had a full estate and honour and fleshly delights to love Nay many poor men think better of riches and honour than those that have them because they never tryed how vain and vexatious they are and if they had tryed them perhaps would love them less The world is but a painted Strumpet admired afar off but the neerer you come to it and the more it 's known the worse you will like it Is it by your own desire that you are poor or is it against your wills Had you not rather be as great and rich as others Had you not rather live at ease and fulness And do you think God will love you ever the better for that which is against your wills Will he count that man to be no worldling that would fain have more of the world and cannot and that loveth God and Heaven no better than the rich Nay that will sin for a shilling when great ones do it for greater summs who can be more unfit for Heaven than he that loveth a life of labour and want and misery better Alas it is but little that the greatest worldlings have for their salvation But poor worldlings sell it for less than they and therefore do despise it more Direct 4. Let the true nature and aggravations of the sin of worldliness be still in your eye to make it odious to you As for instance 1. It is true and odious Idolatry Ephes 5.5 Col. 3.5 To have God for our God indeed is to love him as our God and to delight in him and be ruled by him Who then is an Idolater if he be not one who loveth the world and delighteth in it more than in God or esteemeth it fitter to be the matter of his delight and is ruled by it and seeketh it more Isa 55.1 2 3. 2. It is a blasphemous contempt of God and Heaven to prefer a dung hill world before him To set more by the provisions and pleasures of the flesh than by all the blessedness of Heaven It is called prophaneness in Esau to sell his birth-right for one morsel Heb. 12.16 What prophaneness is it then to say as worldlings hearts and lives do The satisfying of my flesh and fansie for a time is better than God and the Joyes of Heaven to all eternity 3. It is a sin of Interest and not only of Passion and therefore it possesseth the very Heart and Love which is the principal faculty of the soul and that which God most reserveth for himself No actual sin which is but little loved is so heinous and morâ—al as that which is most loved Because these do must exclude the Love of God Some other sins may do more hurt to others but this is worst to the sinner himself We justly pitty poor Heathenish Idolaters and pray for their conversion and I would we did it more But do not you not think that our hypocrite-worldlings do love their riches and their honours and pleasures better than the poor Heathens love their Idols They bow the knee to a creature and you entertain it in your heart 4. It is a sin of deliberation and contrivance which is much worse than a surprize by a sudden temptation You plot how you may compass your voluptuous covetous and ambitious ends Therefore it is a sin that standeth at the furthest distance from Repentance and is both voluntary and a settled habit 5. It is a continued sin Men be not alwaies lying though they be never so great lyars nor alwaies stealing if they be the most notorious thieves nor alwaies swearing if they be the profanest swearers But a worldly mind is alwaies worldly He is alwaies committing his Idolatry with the world and alwaies denying his Love to God 6. It is not only a sin about the means to a right end as mischosen waies of Religion may be but it is a sin against the End it self and a mischusing of a false pernicious End And so it is the perverting not only of one particular action but even of the bent and course of mens lives And consequently a mis-spending all their time 7. It is a perverting of Gods creatures to a use clean contrary to that which they are given us for and an unthankful turning of all his gifts against himself He gave us his creatures to lead us to him and by their loveliness to shew his greater loveliness and to taste in their sweetness the greater sweetness of his love And will you use them to turn your affections from him 8. It it a great debasing of the soul it self to fill that noble Spirit with nothing but dirt and smoak which was made to know and love its God 9. It is an irrational vice and signifieth not only much unbelief of the unseen things which should take up the soul but also a sottish inconsiderateness of the vanity and brevity of the things below It is an unmanning our selves and hiring out our reason to be a servant to our fleshly lusts 10. Lastly It is a pregnant multiplying sin which bringeth forth abundance more The love of money is the root of all evil 1 Tim. 6.9 10. Therefore Direct 5. Let the mischievous effects of this sin be still befâ—re your eyes As for instance 1. It keepeth the heart strange to God and Heaven The Love of God and of the world are contrary 1 John 2.15 3.17 James 4.4 So is an earthly and a heavenly conversation Phil. 3.18 19 20. And the laying up a treasure in Heaven and upon Earth Matth. 6.19 20 21. And the living after the flesh and after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 5 6 13. Ye cannot possibly serve God and Mammon nor travel two contrary waies at once nor have two contrary felicities till you have two hearts
find it so after giving to the poor or visiting the sick or providing for your family What then must you do You must lament the carnality of your minds and beg of God for such grace as may fit you for your duties And not cast off your duty because you are so bad but labour to be better and to do it better And 2. You must not judge of the benefit only by present feeling But if God hath promised a blessing to you believe it and you shall certainly meet with it at the last Many a one thinks that to forsake all bodily labour and to do nothing but the duties of Religion doth benefit them more at the present when perhaps in a little time the sickness of their bodies or the melancholy destraction of their minds doth lose them more than they had gotten and make them unfit for almost any duty at all And many a one that think their spiritual benefit is interrupted by their callings do find all Gods Promises fulfilled at last to their satisfaction Quest 7. But is it not lawful to set ones self only to Religion as John Baptist Anna c. did Answ It is a duty to be as religious as you can But it is also a duty to labour in your calling and do all the good you can to others The aged and impotent that cannot labour in a calling are excused from it And they that give up themselves to the Magistracy Ministry Physick c. must meddle with no lower things which would hinder them in the higher But no man can be excused from doing all the good he can to others by any pretences of looking to his soul For he can no way more surely further his salvation nor cahe hinder it more than by sinful negligence and sloth Quest 8. But was not labour and toil a curse upon Adam after his sin and any man that can may labour to escape a curse Answ 1. Adam in innocency was set to dress and keep the Garden 2. The curse was in the toil and the frustration of his labour 3. And even that is such a curse as God will not take off or remit Quest 9. Doth not Paul say to servants If ye can be free use it rather Answ True But he saith not If you can be idle use it rather A free man may work as hard as a bondman Quest 10. May not a man that hath several callings before him chuse the easiest Answ Not meerly or chiefly because it is easie but he must chuse the most profitable to the common good be it easie or hard if it be such as he can undergo Yet he may avoid such a calling as by trying his body indisposeth him to spiritual things or by taking up all his time will deprive him of convenient leisure for things spiritual But he that only to ease his flesh doth put by more profitable employments because they will cost him labour doth serve his flesh and cast off his duty to his God II. The signs of wealthy-idleness are these 1. When men think it unnecessary for them to labour constantly and diligently because they are rich and can live without it or because they are great and it is below them The confutation of which errour I gave you before and shall give you more of it anon The poor in spirit think not a laborious life below them 2. When men have time to spare This is a most evident mark of Idleness For God hath given us no time in vain but hath given us full work for all our time They that have time to play away needlesly to sleep away needlesly to prate away needlesly do tell the world that Sodom's Idleness is their sin Especially poor souls who are yet unsanctified and are strangers to a renewed heart and life and are utterly unfit to die O what abundance of important work have these to do And can they be idle while all this lyeth undone Indeed if they are in despair of being saved it is no wonder And one would think by their lives that they did despair For surely a man so neer another world that must be in Heaven or Hell for ever would never live idly if he had any good hope that his endeavours should not be all in vain The poor in spirit have no time to spare Labour is their life Eternity is still before their eyes Necessity is upon them and they know the wo that followeth Idleness Repentance for sin and negligence past is a constant spur to future diligence And their work is sweet and incomparably more pleasant to them than Idleness If the Devil be so diligent because he knoweth that his time is short Rev. 12.12 it is a shame to them that are not so who call themselves the servants of the Lord. 3. When mens labour hath but the time that 's due to Recreation and Recreation and Idleness hath the great part of time that 's due to labour The labour of the idle Sodomite is like the Religion of the reserved Hypocrite It is but the leavings of the flesh or somewhat that cometh in upon the by But God is not unconstant in his mercies unto us He is still preserving us and maintaining us The Angels are still guarding us The faithful Ministers of Christ are constant in teaching us and loth that Satan should hinder them and save their labour Faithful Magistrates also watch continually to be a terrour to evil doers and a praise to them that do well as the Ministers of God for our good And can a short and idle kind of labouring then excuse us Christ said It was his meat to do his Fathers will when he was endeavouring mans salvation John 4 34. And that he must do the work of him that sent him while it was day John 9.4 And shall Idleness be excused in us even in us who must be judged according to our works Rev. 22.12 Mark 13.34 by him that hath commanded every man his work Yea when we are redeemed and purified to be zealous of good works Titus 2.14 and are his workmanship created to good works in Christ which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Ephes 2.10 4. When men make a great matter of all their labour and of that which to a diligent man is small The sluggard hath his thorn hedge and a Lion in the way Prov. 22.13 26.13 15 16. But the diligent say when they have done their best We are unprofitable servants Nothing is so weary to them as unprofitable idleness except hurtful wickedness They think still O how short is time and how much work is yet undone And as every faithful Minister in his calling is never so well pleased as when he doth most for the good of souls so is it with every faithful Christian in his place A Candle if it be not burnt is lost and good for nothing 5. The idle Sodomite hath a mind which followeth the affections of his body And as soon as
3. We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye be not soon shaken in mind or troubled neither by Spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand Let no man deceive you You see here that Spirit Word and Scripture may be pretended for an untruth Matth. 4. Satan often saith It is written 2 Cor. 11.12 13 14 15. False Apostles and deceitful workers may transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ and Ministers of Righteousness and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light 1 John 4.1 Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God Gal. 1.7 8. If we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel to you let him be accursed Quest But how then shall I know when it is the Spirit which putteth any thing into my mind Answ 1. The matter it self must be tryed whether it agree with the sacred Scripture and must be proved true by the Word of God 2. The end to which that truth is brought must be proved to be just and good For Satan pleadeth truthâ— to sinful ends 3. The application of them to your own case must be such as will hold tryal and it must be proved by sound argument that indeed they do thus and thus belong to you For Gods Spirit will not belye you nor make you better or worse than you are no more than he will belye the Scriptures Object But is it not the same Spirit which spake to the Apostles which speaketh to us If they were to believe him immediately so must we and seeing the Spirit is above the Scripture we must try the Scriptures by the Spirit and not the Spirit by the Scriptures Answ Alas how pittifully ignorance beweildreth men 1. It is the same Spirit which was in the Apostles and is in the weakest Christian But he worketh not in the same degree He inspired them to infallibility being promised to lead them into all truth and to bring all things which Christ had spoken to their remembrance and he enabled them to prove this by manifold miracles Doth he do all this by you or had you the same promises 2. The same Spirit in them was given to one end and to you for another To them it was given to cause them by his inspiration to deliver all that Christ had taught them and to leave it on record to all generations as his infallible Word and Law to be the Rule of doctrine and practice to the end of the world But to you the same Spirit is given to cause you to understand and love and obey this Law which is already written and not to write or know another 3. The Spirit indited the Scriptures before you were born and we are sure that that is the Word of God and we are sure that Gods Spirit contradicteth not it self Therefore your after-pretended revelations must be tryed by the certain ancient Rule which had the seal of miracles which yours hath not Obj. But how shall I know what application to make of Scripture to my self but by the teaching of the Spirit of God Answ But you must not take every thought and suggestion or remembrance to be the Spirits application Gods Spirit teacheth men by the light of sound evidence which may be proved and wil hold good in tryal He teacheth you by exciteing you to rational studies and argumentation and by blessing you in such sober use of Gods means But he doth not teach you to know your state by the bare remembring of a text Direct 9. Take heed also of misunderstanding what is the witness of the Spirit that we are Gods children Many think it is like some voice or suggestion or inspiration within them saying Thou art the Child of God And so many Christians languish in terrours that feel no such perswading Spirit in them And many Hypocrites are deluded by the perswasions of their own imaginations But in Scripture the word witness is oft taken for evidence or an objective testimony And the Spirits being a witness and being a seal an earnest a pledge a white stone a new name c. are all of the like signification And the meaning is By this we know that we are the children of God or that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 John 3.10.24 4.13 And if any one have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8.9 As if he should say have you the Spirit of Christ or have you not if you have that is a seal an earnest a pledge of Gods Love and of your heavenly inheritance and a certain evidence or witness that you are his children Gal. 4.6 He that loveth God as his Father in Christ and is sanctified to God hath the Spirit Shew this Love and this Sanctification and you produce the true witness that you are the heirs of life Holiness and Heavenliness and Love is the witness seal and earnest and not chiefly an inward perswasion that we are Gods children 2. Yet this much more the Spirit doth when it hath sanctified us and given us the witness or evidence in our selves 1 John 5.10 11. He also helpeth us to see and know that grace which he giveth and actuateth in us 3. And also to conclude from that evidence that we are Gods children And also to feel the inward comfort of that conclusion But all this he doth by these means in a discursive or rational way and by blessing such reasoning to our comfort 4. Also he comforteth the soul in another way distinct from the way of concluding from evidence and that is by exciting the Love of God and his praises in us which are of themselves delighting acts But of this anon Direct 10. Take heed of Heretical Seducers who use to fish in troubled waters and to fall in with such perplexed consciences to perswade them that all the cause of their trouble is their opinions and unsound Religion and not in them and that the only way to comfort is to change their Religion and to come over unto them No person fitter for a Quaker a Papist or any Sectary to work upon than a troubled mind For such are like the ignorant Country people in their sickness who will hearken to any one who putteth them in hope and promiseth them ease and most confidently tells them that he can cure them and saith I was just in your case and such or such a thing cured me so will the Formalist and the Fanatick the Papist and the Quaker say I was just in your condition I was troubled and could get no peace of conscience no joy in the Holy Ghost but was alwaies held in fears and doubting till I changed my Religion and ever since that I have been well and O what joyes I have to boast of And if it be an unsound Hypocrite that is thus tempted perhaps God may
those in Heaven you will quite misunderstand the providences of God in the prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the Saints and the changes that are usually made on Earth You will begin to think that sin is safe and the wicked are not so miserable as they are nor godly diligence so profitable a thing you will not know the reasons of providence unless you can see unto the end And the ultimate end is not on Earth But go into the Sanctuary and take the prospective of the promise and look to the blessed souls with Christ and all the riddle will be expounded to you and you will be reconciled to all the providences of God You are strange to truth if you are strange to the triumphing Saints in Heaven 8. The progressive nature of your faith and godliness requireth it You are travelling to Heaven where the blessed are and are nearer to them than when you first believed And the nearer you are to them the more you should mind them and by Faith and Love be familiar with them And when you are almost at home you should be even ready to embrace your friends at the meeting 9. Your Relation to the blessed Spirits doth require it and your Christian and ingenuous disposition towards them 1. Are they not such as were latety near you in the flesh some of them your dearest companions and friends and should you causlesly forget them 2. Are they not not now your friends who love you better than they could do on earth Doubtless their knowledge and memory is not grown less to forget you if once they knew you but they are like to know much more And their Goodness being increased their Love is increased and not diminished 3. And you belong to the same Society with them even to the Body or Church of Christ whose nobler part above and inferiour part on Earth do make up the whole Is it not expresly said Heb. 12.22 23. that we are come unto Mount Zion and unto the City of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven that is to those which as the first born are most noble and possessed of the heavenly inheritance and are there entered inhabitants already And to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the New Covenant c. And what is it to come to them but to come or be joyned to that Society of which they are the nobler part Will you be Fellow-Citizens with them and have no communion with them nor seriously remember them How can you remember God himself and not remember those that are his Courtiers and nearer to him than you are And how can you think of Christ and not think of his Body Or how can you think of his Body and forget the most excellent and honourable parts Or how can you remember your selves and forget your chiefest Friends and Lovers 10. The very nature of the Life of Faith requireth us to look much to the departed Saints The Life of Faith consisteth in our conversing with the things unseen as the life of sight or sense is our conversing with things seen If you love and think on none of the Saints but those that are within your sight you live so far but as by sight Though Faith live not upon Saints properly but on God and our Redeemer yet it liveth and converseth with the Saints If it work aright it will as it were set you among them and make you live on Earth as if you heard their songs of praise and saw their Thrones of Glory 11. The present necessities of your condition in this world do require you to look much to the Saints above as is before shewed in the benefits recited We live here among such persons and things as are objects of continual sorrow to us And have we not need of some more comfortable company If you had nothing at home but chiding and discontent and poverty you will be willing of so much recreation as to be invited to feast sometimes where there is plenty pleasure and content If you lived among groaning sick or melancholy persons in an Hospital you would be glad sometimes of merryer company a little to refresh your minds Alas what a deal of sin do we daily see or hear of and what a deal of sorrow is round about us What are our News-books filled with or the daily reports which come to our ears but sin and sorrow vanity and vexation what is the employment of most of the world what is it that Court and Country City and all Societies ring of but vanity and vexation sin and sorrow And is not a walk in Heaven with better company a pleasure desirable in such a case What grief must needs dwell on the minds of sober Catholick Christians to see the Church on earth so torn so worryed so reproached as it is throughout the earth so torn in pieces by its zealous ignorant self-conceited Pastors and Members so worryed by its open and secret enemies even by the usurping tyrannizing Wolves in Sheeps cloathing who spare not the flock Matth. 7.15 10.16 Acts 20.29 so reproached by the world of Infidels and Heathens who fly from it as from an infected City and say Christians are drunkards and deceivers and lyars they are all in pieces among themselves they revile and persecute one another we will therefore be no Christians How sad is it to see the one part of the world professing Christianity to make it odious by their wickedness and their divisions and the rest of the world abhorring it because these have made it seem odious to them How sad is it to hear all Christians speak of love and Concord Unity and Peace while few of them know the way of Peace or how to hold their own hands from tearing the Church into more pieces while these peaceable words are in their mouths To see the Pastors and People as if it were for Unity and Peace contriving the ruine of all that are not of their Party and Way and studying how to extirpate one another and multiplyjng snares and stumbling blocks as necessary means to heal the Church How sad is it to see so great a faction as the Roman Kingdom for it is more properly a Kingdom than a Church to lay the necessary Vnity and Communion of all the Churches upon so many forgeries of their own upon the supposed certainty of the falseness of all mens senses in the point of Transubstantiation and upon the subjection of the Church to an universal usurpes and to keep up ignorance lest knowledge by reading the translated Scriptures and such Books as do detect their frauds should mart their markets and spoil their trade To see their Prelates take their own domination wealth and greatness to be really the prosperity of the Church and
with very tenderly and cautelously 1. Our Praises of them must be sober and wary and such as are in a plain tendency to the praises of God and godliness lest before we are aware we kindle superstition in the minds of the auditors Praise them we may but with a care of the manner measure and consequents and with a due respect to the praise of God 2. Our Prayers for the Resurrection of their bodies and their solemn Justification at the day of Judgment though lawful in it self yet must be done with very great caution And it is fitter that we pray together in general for the Resurrection of All the members of Christ both those that are dead and those that will be than to fix upon the dead distinctly because as we have no precept or example for it in the Scriptures so the minds of the hearers if it be publick may easily abuse our example to errour and excess 3. Our thankfulness to them for their love and benefits must be very cautelously expressed Not by a verbal thanksgiving to them of whom we are uncertain when they hear us Nor yet in any such language as tendeth to encroach upon the honour of our great Benefactor nor to acknowledge any more as from them than as the Ministers of Christ 4. And in our acknowledgements of their general prayers for the Church we must take heed of feigning them to be more particular than we can prove that they are 5. And we must take heed of all such Rhetorical Prosopopeia's as tend to delude the hearers or the readers as if we would draw them to believe the presence and audience of those spirits which we intend not to express 6. And our honouring of the memory of their Martyrdom or Holiness must be so cautelous that it tend not to Idolatry or Superstition It is lawful in it self to keep the relicks of a Saint or a Friend and to keep a solemn thankful memorial of Gods mercy to his Church in her most excellent helpers and successfullest instruments of her good But in a time when these are commonly abused to superstition the consequents may make that evil which in other circumstances might be good When the Primitive Pastors led their people sometimes to the places where their neighbours suffered Martyrdom for Christ and there praised God for their praised constancy to encourage the people and engage themselves to be true to Christ and die as constantly as others did this then had good effects and if it had been used more cautelously had been laudable But they did not foresee the great inconveniencies of relicks pilgrimages prayers to Saints c. which in after-ages it introduced And now it must be with very great caution indeed if we will imitate them 7. To pray to God to hear their general prayers for the Church such as those mentioned Rev. 6.9 10. doth intimate no false doctrine that I know of But it is a practice that hath danger and no Scripture precept or example to encourage it nor solid reason that I remember And if God would have had us used it it 's like he would have made it known II. Affirmatively Our converse with those in Heaven consisteth in all these parts 1. We must acknowledge our Relation to them and not think that they are nothing to us 2. We must not forget them but see them by faith and take it as part of our daily business to have some daily conversation with them 3. We must love them with a peculiar love even better than we love the godly upon earth because they are better and liker unto God and love him more and are more beloved by him 4. We must specially rejoyce that God is glorified in and by them and look often to them as the more illustrious representers of the Divine Perfections than any of the Saints on Earth 5. We must greatly rejoyce in their own felicity and glory even as if it were our own If we did see with our eyes our old dear friend as Lazarus in Abraham's bosome triumphing now in the glory of the blessed we could not chuse but be daily very glad on their behalf to see and think O what felicity do my friends enjoy And faith should make it in some measure to you as if you saw it 6. We must have a grateful sense in our minds of their love to us and must give God thanks for his Angels ministrations for us For doubtless as they are wiser and better than any of our friends on earth so they have a better a purer and diviner kind of Love to us than these below have And the Angels disdain not to be Christs servants for our good yea for our salvation Heb. 1.14 For are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Matth. 18.10 Their Angels alwaies behold the face of my Father in Heaven Psal 34.7 The Angel of the Lord campeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them Psal 91.11 He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy waies They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone Luke 15.10 There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth Luke 16.22 The beggar dyed and was carryed by Angels into Abrahams bosome Though the great Love is that of God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and our chiefest gratitude is due to him even for the benefit which we have by any of his creatures yet love and mental thankfulness is due to the rational creatures which are his voluntary instruments because they do what they do out of real love to us otherwise we should owe thankfulness to none either benefactor friend or parents 7. And our believing converse with the blessed spirits must make us earnestly desire to be like them even to be as like them here as possibly we may and to be with them that we may be perfect as they are perfect We must long to be near God as they are and to know him and love him as they do and this holy ambition is well pleasing to God Though we must not desire to be as God we must desire to know and love him perfectly 8. And hence we must proceed to a sober imitation of them as they are now employed in Heaven Not in those particulars wherein their case and ours differ as to thank God for that conquest which they have made and that glory which they do possess c. But in all those duties which in some degree belong to us as well as them For instance Ask what kind of Religion is likest to that which is in Heaven Is it studying bare words and disputing about things unprofitable or contending and quarrelling about precedency preheminence or domination Or is it not rather the clearest knowledge and the ferventest Love of God and all his holy ones and the fullest content delight and rest
converse and our comfort Will you converse with none but ignorant selfish worldly sinners Are you more contemptuous of the heavenly inhabitants than the Gentleman in hell torments was Luke 16.26 27. that thought one from the dead though it had been but a beggar would have been reverenced even by his sensual brethren on earth so far as to have perswaded them unto saving Repentance I tell you a dead mans skull is oft-times a more profitable companion than most that you shall converse with in the common world The dust of your departed friends and the clay that corps are turned into is a good medicine for those eyes that are blinded with the dust of worldly vanities Much more should you keep your acquaintance with the soul which may for all the distance be perhaps more useful to you than it was in the flesh Alas how carnally and coldly or seldom do most Professors look at their Brethren and at the Angelical hosts that are above They long for our conversion and mind our great concernments and rejoyce in our felicity and shall we be so swinishly ungrateful as seldom to look up and remember their high and blessed state Many think that they have no more business with their deceased friends than to see them decently interred and to mourn over them as if their removal were their loss or to grieve for our own loss when we perceive their places empty but we scarce look up after them with an eye of faith much less do we daily maintain our communion with them in Heaven When Christ was taken up his Disciples gazed after him Act. 1.10 Stephen looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7.55 And how seldome how slightly do we look up either to Jesus his Angels or his Saints I tell you Sirs you have not done with your friends when you have buryed their flesh They have left you their holy examples They are entered before you into rest You are hastening after them and must be quickly with them if you are true Believers You must see them every day by faith When you look to Christ you must look to them as his beloved friends entertained by him in his family of glory When you look up to Heaven remember that they are there When you think of coming thither remember that you must there meet them You must honour their memories more than you did on earth because they are more honourable being more honoured of God You must love them better than you did when they were on earth because they are better and so more lovely You must rejoyce much more for their felicity than you did whilest they were on earth because they are incomparably more happy than they were Either you believe this or you do not If you do not believe that the dead are blessed that die in the Lord and rest from their labours and are with Christ in Paradise why do you seem Christians If you do believe it why do you not more rejoyce with your glorified friends than you would have done if they had been advanced to the greatest honours in the world It is the natural duty of friends to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and if one member be honoured or dishonoured the rest of the body are accordingly affected Do not your sorrows then instead of joyes tell all men that you believe that your friends are gone to sorrow and not to joy If not you are very selfish or inconsiderate Direct 10. Lastly Let not your aversation to Popery turn to a factiâ—us partial forsaking of Gods Truth and your own duty and consolation in this point Abundance of Christians have taken up opinions in Religion upon the love and honour of the parties that they took them of and being possessed with a just dislike of Popery in the main they suspect and cast away not a few great truths and duties upon a false information that they are parts of Popery It hath grieved 〈…〉 â—han once to hear religious persons come from heariâ—g 〈◊〉 Ministers with disdain and censure saying that they prayed for the dead and all their proof was that Thanksgiving is a part of prayer but they gave God thanks for the glorification of the spirits of the Just therefore they prayed for them And so have they argued because they have read the 1 Cor. 15. at the grave or because they have preached a Funeral Sermon while the Corpse was present or because they prayed then for themselves or for the Church Alas for the childish ignorance and pievishness and foolish wranglings of many Christians who think they are better than their neighbours How much is Christs family dishonoured by his silly froward children And they will not be instructed by their friends and therefore they are posted up and openly reproached by their enemies Have Angels or heavenly Saints deserved so ill of God or us that we should be so shy of their communion Are they nothing to us Have we nothing to do with them Have we cause to be ashamed of them Is their honour any dishonour to God or us if it be no more than what is their due Can we give so much love respect and honour to Magistrates Ministers and Friends on earth imperfect sinful troublesome mortals and shall we think that all is idolatrous or cast away which is given to them that so far excel us Is it your design to make Heaven either contemptible or strange to men on earth Or would you perswade the world that the souls of the Saints are not immortal but perish as the bruits Or that there is no Heaven Or that God is there alone without any company Are so many fond of the opinion of a Personal Reign on Earth for Christ with his holy ones and yet is it Popery so much as to speak honourably and joyfully of the Saints in Heaven My Brethren these things declare you yet to be too dark too factious and too carnal and to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to parties sides and persons Christ taketh not his Saints as strangers to him He that judgeth men as they love and use him in the least of his Brethren upon Earth will not so soon censure and quarrel with us as the Sectary will do for loving and honouring him in his Saints in Heaven for it is his will and prayer that they be with him where he is to behold his glory John 12.26 17.24 And he will come with his holy Angels to be glorified in his Saints who shall judge the world and Angels and to be admired in all them that do now believe 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. CHAP. XXVII How to receive the Sentence of Death and how to die by Faith HAving said so much of this elsewhere in my Books called A Believers last work The last Enemy My Christian Directory Treatise of Self-denyal c. I shall be here but
to joyn in consort with all these in those seraphick praises which are harmoniously sounded forth continually through all the intellectual world in the greatest fervours of perfect Love and the constant raptures of perfect Joy in the fullest intuition of the glory of the Eternal God and the glorified humanity of your Redeemer and the glory of the celestial world and society and under the streams of Infinite Life and Light and Love poured forth upon you to feed all this to all Eternity And all this in so near and sweet an union with the glorified ones who are the body and Spouse of Christ that it shall be all as one Praise one Love one Joy in all O for a more lively and quick-sighted faith to foresee this day in some measure as affectingly as we shall then see it Alas my Lord is this dark prospect all that I must here hope for Is this dull and dreaming and amazing apprehension all that I shall reach to here Is this sensless heart this despondent mind these drowsie desires the best that I must here employ in the contemplation of so high a glory Must I come in such a sleepy state to God and go as in a dream to the beatifical vision I am ashamed and confounded to find my soul alas so dark so dead so low so unsuitable to such a day and state even whilest I am daily looking towards it and whilest I am daily talking of it and perswading others to higher apprehensions than I can reach my self and even whilest I am writing of it and attempting to draw a Map of Heaven for the consolation of my self and fellow-believers Thou hast convinced my Reason of the truth of thy predictions and of the certain futurity of that glorious day And yet how little do my affections stir and how unanswerable are my joyes and my desires to those convictions when the light of my understanding should cure the deadness of my heart alas this deadness rather extinguisheth that light and cherisheth temptations to unbelief and my faith and reason and knowledge are as it were asleep and useless for want of that Life which should awaken them unto exercise and use Awakened Reason serveth Faith and is alwaies on thy side But sleepy Reason in the gleams of prosperity is ready to give place to flesh and fancy and hath a thousand distracted incoherent dreams O now reveal thy Power thy Truth thy Love and Goodness effectually to my soul and then I shall wait with love and longing for the revelation of thy Glory Thy inward heavenly powerful Light is kin to the glorious brightness of thy coming and will shew me that which books and talk only without thy Spirit cannot shew Thy Kingdom in me and my daily faithful subjection to thy Government there must prepare me for the glorious endless Kingdom If now thou wouldest pour out thy Love upon my soul it would flame up towards thee and long to meet thee and think with daily pleasure on that day And my perfect Love would cast out that fear which maketh the thoughts of thy coming to be a torment O meet me now when my soul doth seek thee and secretly cry after thee that I may know thou wilt meet me with love and pitty at the last O turn not now thine ears from my requests For if thou receive me not now as thy humble supplicant how shall I hope that thou wilt receive me then And if thou wilt not hear me in the day of grace and visitation and in this time when thou mayest be found how can I hope that thou wilt hear me then when the door is shut and the seeking and finding time is past If thou cast me out of thy presence now and turn away thy face from my soul and my supplication as a loathed thing how can I then expect thy smiles or the vital embracements of thy glorifying Love or to be owned by thee before all the world with that cordial and consolatory Justification which may keep my conscience from becoming my Hell If thou permit my flesh and sense to conquer my faith and to turn away my love and desire from thee how shall I then expect that Joy that Heaven which consisteth in thy Love And if thou suffer this unstedfast heart to depart from thee now will it not be the forerunner of that dreadful doom Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not And if for the love of transitory vanity I now deny thee what can I then expect but to be finally denyed by thee Come Lord and dwell by thy Spirit in my soul that I may have something in me to take my part and may know that I shall dwell with thee for ever If now thou wilt make me thy temple and habitatâ—on and wilt dwell by faith and love within me I shall know thee by more than the hearing of the ear and thy last appearing will be less terrible to my thoughts Thou wilt be health to my soul when my body lyeth languishing in pain And when flesh and heart fail my failing heart will find reviving strength in thee And when the portion of worldlings is spent and at an end I shall find thee a never-ending portion Why wouldest thou come down from Heaven to Earth in the daies of thy voluntary humiliation but to bring down grace to dwell where God himself hath dwelt If the Eternal Word will dwell in flesh the Eternal Spirit will not disdain it whose dwelling is not by so close an union but by sweet unexpressible inoperations This world hath had the pledge of thy bodily presence when thou broughtest life and immortality to light O let my dark and fearful soul have the pledge of thy illuminating quickening comforting Spirit that life and immortality may be begun within me Thy word of promise is certain in it self but knowing our weakness thou wilt give us more Thy seal thy pledge thy earnest will not only confirm my faith as settling my doubting mind but it will also draw up my love and desire as suited to my intellectual appetite and will be a true foretaste of Heaven How oft have I gazed in the glass and yet overlookt or not been taken with the beauty of thy face But one drop of thy Love if it fall into my soul will fill it with the most fragrant and delectable odour and will be its life and joy and vigour I shall never know effectually what Heaven is till I know what it is to love thee and to be beloved by thee For what but Love will tell me what a life of Love is If I could love thee more ardently more absolutely more operatively I should quickly know and feel thy Love And O when I shall know that prosperous life and live in in the delicious entertainments of thy love and in the sweet and vigorous exercise of mine then I shall know the nature of Heaven the wisdom of believers and the happiness of enjoyers And then