3. And this guilt and fear and unwillingness together will all keep down your thoughts from Heaven so that seldom thinking of it will increase your unbelief and they will make you unfit to see the evidences of truth in the Gospel when you do think of them or hear them For he that would not kâ—â—w cannot learn Obâ—y therefore according to the knowledge which you have if ever you would have more and would not be given up to the blindness of Infidelity Direct 11. Trust not only to your understandings and think not that study is all which is necessary to faith But remember that faith is the gift of God and therefore pray as well as study Prov. 3.5 Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to thy own understanding It is a precept as necessary in this point as in any In all things God abhorreth the proud and looketh at them afar off as with disowning and disdain But in no case more than when a blind ungodly sinner shall so overvalue his own understanding as to think that if there be evidence of truth in the mystery of faith he is able presently to discern it before or without any heavenly illumination to cure his dark distempered mind Remember that as the Sun is seen only by his own light so is God our Creatour and Redeemer Faith is the gift of God as well as Repentance Ephes 2.8 2 Tim. 2.25 26. Apply your selves therefore to God by earnest prayer for it As he Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief And as the Disciples Luke 17.5 Increase our faith A humble soul that waiteth on God in fervent prayer and yet neglecteth not to study and search for truth is much liker to become a confirmed Believer than ungodly Students who trust and seek no further than to their Books and their perverted minds For as God will be sought to for his grace so those that draw near him do draw near unto the Light and therefore are like as children of Light to be delivered from the power of darkness For in his light we shall see the light that must acquaint us with him Direct 12. Lastly What measure of Light soever God vouchsafeth you labour to turn it all into Love and make it your serious care and business to know God that you may love him and to love God so far as you know him For he that desireth satisfaction in his doubts to no better end than to please his mind by knowing and to free it from the disquiet of uncertainty hath an end so low in all his studies that he cannot expect that God and his grace should be called down to serve such a low and base design That faith which is not employed in beholding the love of God in the face of Christ on purpose to increase and exercise our love is not indeed the true Christian Faith but a dead opinion And he that hath never so weak a faith and useth it to this end to know Gods amiableness and to love him doth take the most certain way for the confirmation of his faith For Love is the closest adherence of the soul to God and therefore will set it in the clearest light and will teach it by the sweet convincing way of experience and spiritual taste Believing alone is like the knowledge of our meat by seeing it And Love is as the knowledge of our meat by eating and digesting it And he that hath tasted that it is sweet hath a stronger kind of perswasion that it is sweet than he that only seeth it and will much more tenaciously hold his apprehension It is more possible to dispute him out of his belief who only seeth than him that also tasteth and concocteth A Parent and child will not so easily believe any false reports of one another as strangers or enemies will because Love is a powerful resister of such hard conceits And though this be delusory and blinding partiality where Love is guided by mistake yet when a sound understanding leadeth it and Love hath chosen the truest object it is the naturally perfective motion of the soul And Love keepeth us under the fullest influences of Gods Love and therefore in the reception of that grace which will increase our faith For Love is that act which the ancient Doctors were wont to call the principle of merit or first meritorious act of the soul and which we call the principle of rewardable acts God beginneth and loveth us first partly with a Love of complacency only as his creatures and also as in esse cognito he foreseeth how amiable his grace will make us and partly with a Love of benevolence intending to give us that grace which shall make us really the objects of his further Love And having received this grace it causeth us to love God And when we love God we are really the objects of his complacential Love and when we perceive this it still increaseth our Love And thus the mutual Love of God and Man is the true perpetual motion which hath an everlasting cause and therefore must have an everlasting duration And so the faith which hath once kindled Love even sincere Love to God in Christ hath taken rooting in the heart and lyeth deeper than the head and will hold fast and increase as Love increaseth And this is the true reason of the stedfastness and happiness of many weak unlearned Christians who have not the distinct conceptions and reasonings of learned men and yet because their Faith is turned into Love their Love doth help to confirm their Faith And as they love more heartily so they believe more stedfastly and perseveringly than many who can say more for their faith And so much for the strengthening of your faith CHAP. IX General Directions for exercising the Life of Faith HAving told you how Faith must be confirmed I am next to tell you how it must be used And in this I shall begin with some General Directions and then proceed to such particular cases in which we have the greatest use for Faith Direct 1. Remember the necessity of Faith in all the business of your hearts and lives that nothing can be done well without it There is no sin to be conquered no grace to be exercised no worship to be performed nor no acts of mercy or justice or worldly business to be well done without it in any manner acceptable to God Without Faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 You may as well go about your bodily work without your eye-sight as about your spiritual work without Faith Direct 2. Make it therefore your care and work to get Faith and to use it and think not that God must reveal his mind to you as in visions while you idly neglect your proper work Believing is the first part of your trade of life and the practice of it must be your constant business It is not living ordinarily by sense and looking when God will
denyal of its truth And a true Exposition is better than either The same God who hath given us a Saviour to satisfie legal Justice and to merit our Justification against the charge that we are condemnable by the Law of Works hath thought meet to convey our title to this Christ and Justification by the Instrumentality of a new Covenant Testament or pardoning Act in which though he absolutely give many antecedent mercies yet he giveth these and other Rights by a conditional gift that as the Reward of Glory should have invited man to keep the Law of Nature and his Innocency so the Reward should be a moving means to draw men to believe So that there is a condition to be performed by our selves through grace before we can have the Covenant right to Justification Now when that is performed Christ then is our only Righteousness as aforesaid by which we must answer the charge of breaking the first Law and being condemnable by it But we can lay no claim to this Righteousness of Christ till we first prove that we are our selves inherently righteous against the charge of being impenitent Vnbelievers This false accusation we must be justâ—fied against by our own Faith and Repentance that we may be justified by Christ against the true accusation of sinning against the Law and thereby being condemnable by it Now as to our Legal Righteousness or Pro-legal rather by which this last must be avoided it is only the merits of Christ given to us in its fruits in the New Covenant even the merits of his obedience and sacrifice But our Faith it self is the other Righteousness which must be found in our persons to entitle us to this first And this being it and being all in the sense aforesaid that is made the condition of our pardon by the New Covenant therefore God is said to impute it it self to us for a Righteousness because that condition makeeth it so and to impute it to us for our Righteousness that is as all that now by this Covenant he requireth to be personally done by us who had formerly been under a harder condition even the fulfilling of the Law by innocency or suffering for sin because he that doth not fulfil nor satisfie as is said yet if he believe hath a right to the Justification merited by Christ who did fulfil and satisfie This is easie to be understood as undoubted truth by the willing and the rest will be most contentious where they are most erroneous Errour 37. That sincere obedience and all acts of Love Repentance and Faith save one do justifie us only before men and of that speaketh St. James ch 2. Contr. I must refer the Reader to other Books in which I have fuly confuted this How can men judge of the acts of Repentance Faith Love c. which are in the heart And James plainly speaketh of Gods imputing Righteousness to Abraham James 2.21 23. And how should men justifie Abraham for kâ—lling his only Son And how small a matter is Justification by man when we may be saved without it 2. Sincere Obedience to God in Christ is the condition of the continuance or not losing our Justification here and the secondary part of the condition of our final sentential and executive Justification Errour 38. That our inherent Righteousness before described hath no place of a condition in our Justification in the day of Judgement Contr. The Scriptures fully confuting this I have elsewhere cited All those that say we shall be judged according to our works c. speak against it For to be judged is only to be justified or condemned So Rev. 22.14 Matth. 25 c. Errour 39 That there is no Justification at Judgement to be expected but only a declaration of it Contr. The Decisive sentence and declaration of the Judge is the most proper sense or sort of Justification and the perfection of all that went before If we shall not be then justified then there is no such thing as Justification by Sentence Nay there is no such thing as a day of Judgement or else all men must be condemned For it is most certain that we must be justified or condemned or not-judged Errour 40. That no man ought to believe that the conditional Covenant Act or Gift of Justification belongeth to him as a member of the lost world or as a sinner in Adam because God hath made no such gift or promise to any but to the Elect. Contr. This is confuted on the by before Errour 41. That though it be false that the non-elect are elect and that Christ dyed for them yet they are bound to believe it every man of himself to prove that they are elect Contr. This is confuted on the by before God bindeth or biddeth no man to believe a lye Errour 42. That we must believe Gods Election and our Justification and the special Love of God to us before we can love him with a special Love Because it will not cause in us a special love to believe only a common love of God and such as he hath to the wicked and his enemies Contr. No man can groundedly believe the special Love of God to him nor his own Election or Justification before he hath yea before he find in himself a special love to God Because he that hath no special love to God must believe a lye if he believe that he is justified or that ever God revealed to him that he is elect or specially beloved of God and no man hath any evidence or proof at all of his election and Gods special love till he have this evidence of his special love to God Till he know this he cannot know that any other is sincere 2. They that deny or blâ—spheme Gods common love to fallen man and his universal pardoning Covenant do their worst to keep men from being moved to the special Love of God by his common Love But when they have done their worst it shall stand as a sure obligation Is there not reason enough to bind men to love God above all even as one that yet may be their happiness in his own infinite Goodness and all the revelations of it by Christ and in his so loving the world as to give his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And in his giving a free pardon of all sin to mankind and offering life eternal to them so that none but the final refusers shall lose it and intreating them to accept it c Is not all this sufficient in reason to move men to that love of God if the Spirit help them to make use of Reason as he must do what Reasons soever are presented to them unless men think that God doth not oblige them by any kindness which they can possibly reject or by any thing which many others do partake of Yet here note that Gods common love to man I do not mean any which he hath to Reprobates under
the nature and cause of light and heat the order course and harmony of the universal systeme of the world what joyful acclamations would this produce in the literal studious sort of men what joy then should it be to us to know by Faith the God that made us the Creation of the world the Laws and Promises of our Creatour the Mysteries of Redemption and Regeneration the frame of the new Creature the entertainment of the spirits of the just with Christ the Judgement which all the world must undergo the work and company which we shall have hereafter and the endless joyes which all the sanctified shall possess in the sight and Love of God for ever How blessed an invention would it be if all the world could be brought again to the use of one universal language Or if all the Churches could be perfectly reconciled how joyful would the Author of so great a work be should we not then rejoyce who foresee by Faith a far more perfect union and consent than ever must be expected here on earth Alas the ordinary lowness of our Comforts doth tell us that our Faith is very small I say not so much The sorrows of a doubting heart as the little joy which we have in the fore-thoughts of Heaven when our title seemeth not much doubtful to us For those sorrows shew that such esteem it a joyful place and would rejoyce if their title were but cleared But when we have neither the sorrow or solicitousness of the afflicted soul nor yet the joy which is any whit suitable to the belief of such everlasting joyes we may know what to judge of such an uneffectual belief at best it is very low and feeble It is a joy unspeakable and full of glory which unseen things should cause in a Believer 1 Pet. 1.6 7 8. Because it is an exceeding eternal weight of glory which he believeth 2 Cor. â— 17 18. 8. Finally Learn to Die also as Believers The life of Faith must bring you to the very entrance into glory where one doth end the other begins As our dark life in the womb by nutriment from the Mother continueth till our passage into the open world You would die in the womb if Faith should cease before it bring you to full intuition and fruition Heb. 11.22 By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of Israel Josephs faith did not die before him Heb. 11.3 These all died in faith confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth and declaring that they sought a better Country They that live by faith must die in faith yea and die by faith too Faith must fetch in their dying comforts And O how full and how near a treasure hath it to go to To die to this world is to be born into another Beggars are best when they are abroad The travail of the ungodly is better to them than their home But the Believers home is so much better than his travail that he hath little cause to be afraid of coming to his Journeys end but should rather every step cry out O when shall I be at home with Christ Is it Earth or Heaven that you have prayed for and laboured for and waited and suffered for till now And doth he indeed pray and labour and suffer for Heaven who would not come thither It is Faith which overcometh the world and the flesh which must also overcome the fears of death and can look with boldness into the loathsome grave and can triumph over both as victorious through Christ It is Faith which can say Go forth O my soul depart in peace Thy course is finished Thy warfare is accomplished The day of triumph is now at hand Thy patience hath no longer work Go forth with joy The morning of thy endless joyes is near and the night of fears and darkness at an end Thy terrible dreams are ending in eternal pleasures The glorious light will banish all thy dreadful specters and resolve all those doubts which were bred and cherished in the dark They whose employment is their weariness and toil do take the night of darkness and cessation for their rest But this is thy weariness Defect of action is thy toil and thy most grievous labour is to do too little work And thy uncessant Vision Love and Praise will be thy uncessant ease and pleasure and thy endless work will be thy endless rest Depart O my soul with peace and gladness Thou leavest not a world where Wisdom and Piety Justice and Sobriety Love and Peace and Order do prevail but a world of ignorance and folly of bruitish sensuality and rage of impiety and malignant enmity to good a world of injustice and oppression and of confusion and distracting strifes Thou goest not to a world of darkness and of wrath but of Light and Love From hellish malice to perfect amity from Bedlam rage to perfect wisdom from mad confusion to perfect order to sweetest unity and peace even to the spirits of the just made perfect and to the celestial glorious City of God! Thou goest not from Heaven to Earth from holiness to sin from the sight of God into an infernal dungeon but from Earth to Heaven from sin and imperfection unto perfect holiness and from palpable darkness into the vital splendour of the face of God! Thou goest not amongst enemies but to dearest friends nor amongst meer strangers but to many whom thou hast known by sight and to more whom thou hast known by faith and must know by the sweetest communion for ever Thou goest not to unsatisfied Justice nor to a condemning unreconciled God but to Love it self to infinite Goodness the fountain of all created and communicated good to the Maker Redeemer and Sanctifier of souls to him who prepared Heaven for thee and now hath prepared thee for Heaven Go forth then in triumph and not with terrour O my soul The prize is won Possess the things which thou hast so long prayed for and sought Make haste and enter into thy Masters joy Go view the glory which thou hast so long heard of and take thy place in the heavenly Chore and bear thy part in their celestial melody Sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God! And receive that which Christ in his Covenant did promise to give thee at the last Go boldly to that blessed God with whom thou hast so powerful a Mediatour and to the Throne of whose grace thou hast had so oft and sweet access If Heaven be thy fear or sorrow what can be thy joy and where wilt thou have refuge if thou fly from God If perfect endless pleasures be thy terrour where then dost thou expect content If grace have taught thee long ago to prefer the heavenly and durable felicity refuse it not now when thou art so near the port if it have taught thee long ago to be as a stranger in this Sodom and to renounce this
done the settling of your faith when once you have found out the soundest evidences and are able to answer all Objections For you must grow still in the fuller discerning and digesting the same evidences which you have discerned For you may hold them so loosely that they may be easily wrested from you And you may see them with so clear and full a knowledge as shall stablish your mind against all ordinary causes of mutation It is one kind or degree rather of knowledge of the same things which the Pupil and another which the Doctor hath I am sure the knowledge which I have now of the evidences of the Christian Verity is much different from what I had thirty years ago when perhaps I could say neer as much as now and used the same Arguments 17. Consider well the great contentions of Philosophers and the great uncertainty of most of those Nations to which the Infidels would reduce our faith or which they would make the test by which to try it They judge Christianity uncertain because it agreeth not with their uncertainties or certain errours 18. Enslave not your Reason to the objects of sense While we are in the body our souls are so imprisoned in flesh and have so much to do with worldly things that most men by averseness and disuse can hardly at all employ their minds about any higher things than sensitive nor go any further than sense conduceth them He that will not use his soul to contemplate things invisible will be as unfit for believing as a Lady is to travel a thousand miles on foot who never went out of her doors but in a Sedan or Coach 19. Where your want of learning or exercise or light doth cause any difficulties which you cannot overcome go to the more wise and experienced Believers and Pastors of the Church to be your helpers For it is their office to be both the preservers and expounders of the sacred Doctrine and to be the helpers of the peoples faith The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 20. Lastly Faithfully practise with Love and alacrity what you do believe lest God in justice leave you to disbelieve that which you would not love and practise So much to direct you in the method of your endeavours for the getting and strengthening of faith CHAP. III. The Evidences of Faith THese things in the Order of your enquiry being presupposed proceed to the consideration of the Evidences themselves which fully prove the Christian Verity And here omitting the preparatory considerations recited at large in my Reasons of the Christian Religion I shall only set before you the grand Evidence it self with a brief recital of some of those means which bring it down to our notice in these times The great infallible witness of CHRIST is the SPIRIT of GOD or the Holy Ghost Or that divine operation of the Holy Spirit which infallibly proveth the attestation of God himself as interesting him in it as the principal cause As we know the Coin of a Prince by his image and superscription and know his acts by his publick proper Seal And as we know that God is the Creatour of the world by the Seal of his likeness which is upon it Or as we know the Father of a child when he is so like him as no other could beget So know we Christ and Christianity to be of God by his unimitable image or impression The Power Wisdom and Goodness of God are the essentialities which we call the Nature of God These in their proper form and transcendent perfection are incommunicable But when they produce an effect on the creature which for the resemblance may analogically be called by the same names the names are logically communicable though the thing it self which is the Divine Essence or Perfections be still incommunicable But when they only produce effects more heterogeneal or equivocal then we call those effects only the footsteps or demonstrations of their cause So GOD whose Power Wisdom and Goodness in it self is incommunicable hath produced intellectual natures which are so like him that their likeness is called his Image and analogically yet equivocally the created faculties of their Power Intellect and Will are called by such names as we are fain for want of other words to apply to God the things signified being transcendently and unexpressibly in God but the words first used of and applied to the creature But the same God hath so demonstrated his Power and Wisdom and Goodness in the Creation of the material or corporeal parts of the world that they are the â—estigia and infallible proofs of his causation and perfections being such as no other cause without him can produce but yet not so properly called his Image as to his Wisdom and Goodness but only of his Power But no wise man who seeth this world can doubt whether a God of perfect Power Wisdom and Goodness was the maker of it Even so the person and doctrine of Christ or the Christian Religion objectively considered hath so much of the Image and so much of the demonstrative impressions of the Nature of God as may fully assure us that he himself is the approving cause And as the Sun hath a double Light Lux Lumen its essential Light in it self and it s emitted beams or communicated Light so the Spirit and Image of God by which Christ and Christianity are demonstrated are partly that which is essential constitutive and inherent and partly that which is sent and communicated from him to others In the person of Christ there is the most excellent Image of God 1. Wonderful Power by which he wrought miracles and commanded Sea and Land Men and Devils and raised the dead and raised himself and is now the glorious Lord of all things 2. Wonderful Wisdom by which he formed his Laws and Kingdom and by which he knew the hearts of men and prophecied of things to come 3. Most wonderful Love and Goodness by which he healed all diseases and by which he saved miserable souls and procured our happiness at so dear a rate But as the essential Light of the Sun is too glorious to be well observed by us but the emitted Light is it which doth affect our eyes and is the immediate object of our sight at least that we can best endure and use so the Essential Perfections of Jesus Christ are not so immediately and ordinarily fit for our observation and use as the lesser communicated beams which he sent forth And these are either such as were the immediate effects of the Spirit in Christ himself or his personal operations or else the effects of his Spirit in others And that is either such as went before him or such as were present with him or such as followed after him Even as the emitted Light of the Sun is either that which is next to its
to one that liveth like a man What did God ever forbid you that was not hurtful to you And what did he ever command you which was not for your benefit either for your present delight or for your future happiness for the healing of your diseases or the preventing them And if Reason can discern the goodness of Gods Laws to us Faith can acknowledge it with more advantage For we can see by Faith the goodness of their Author and the goodness of the reward and end more fully than by reason only And a Believer hath found by sad experience how bad and bitter the waies of sin are and by sweet experience how good and pleasant the waies of God are He hath found that it is the way to peace and hope and joy to deny his lusts and obey his Maker and Redeemer And it is the way to terrour and a troubled soul and a broken heart to sin and to gratifie his sensuality Prov. 3.17 All her waies are pleasantness and all her paths are peace Psal 119.165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing can offend them Psal 37 37. Mark the upright man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace Rom. 14.17 Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are the Kingdom of God Grace Mercy and Peace are Gods entertainment of the faithful soul Titus 1.4 1 Tim. 1.2 2 Tim. 1.2 1 Cor. 1.3 c. But there is no peace to the wicked saith my God Isa 57.21 48.22 For the way of peace they have not known They have made them 〈◊〉 paths whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace Isa 54.8 Direct 3. Mark well how those Commands of God which seem not necessary for your selves are plainly necessary for the good of others and for the publick welfare which God must provide for as well as yours He is not your God only but the God of all the world And the welfare of many especially of Kingdoms and Societies is more to be regarded than the welfare much more than the humouring or pleasing of any one You may think that if you had leave to be fornicators and adulterers to be riotous and examples of evil to be covetous and to deceive and steal and lye that it would do you no harm But suppose it were so yet a little wit may serve to shew you how pernicious it would be to others and to societies And Faith can tell a true Believer what is like to be the end And that sin is a reproach to any people Prov. 14.34 You may think perhaps that if you were excused from many duties of Charity and Justice in Ministry Magistracy or a more private state it would be no harm to your selves But suppose it were so must not others be regarded If God should regard but one why should it fall to your lot rather than to anothers And why should any others be bound to use Justice or Charity to you any more than you to them There is no member of the body politick or ecclesiastick which will not receive more good to it self by the Laws of Communion if truly practised than it can do to others For you are but one who are bound to be charitable and do good to others and that but according to your own ability But it may be hundreds or thousands who may be all bound to do good to you You have the vital influences and assistances of all the parts you have the prayers of all the Christians in the world Suppose that the Laws were made to secure your selves of your estate and lives but to leave the estates and lives of your children to the will of any one that hath a will to wrong them would you be content with such kind of Laws as these And why should not others good be secured as well as your posterities 1 Cor. 12.12 14 20 c. Rom. 12.4 5 16.2 1 Cor. 10.17 33. Ephes 4.3 11 12 14 15 16. Diâ—ect 4. The chief work of Faith is to make the obedience of Gods Commands to be sweet and pleasant to us by seeing still that intrinsecal goodness and the extrinsecal motives and the eternal rewards which may cause the soul to imbrace them with the dearest love They are much mistaken who know no use for Faith but to comfort them and save them from Hell the great work of Faith is to bring up the soul to Obedience Thankfulness and Love Therefore iâ— hath to do with the Precepts as well as with the Promises and with the Promises to sweeten the Precepts to us Believers are not called to the obedience of slaves nor to be acted only by the fear of pain but to the obedience of redeemed ones and Sons that Faith may cause them to obey in Love and the essential act of Love is complacency Therefore it is the work of Faith to cause us to obey God with pleasure and delight Forced motives endure not long They are accompanied with unwillingness and weariness which at last will sit down when the fears do by distance delay or dulness abate Love is our Nature but Fear is only a servant to watch for us while we do the work of Love As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God and therefore will obey as Sons For we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.14 15. Christ suffâ—red death to overcome the Devil that had the power of death and to deliver us from the fears of it which was the bondage of our lives Heb. 2.14 15. That we might serve God without fâ—ar in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives Luke 1.74 There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment 1 John 4.18 The meaning is not only that the Love of God casteth out the fear of men and persecution but also that it maketh the fear of tormenting punishment to become unnecessary to drive us to obedience so far as the Love of God and of obedience doth prevail He that loveth more to feast than to fare hardly to be rich than to be poor and so to be obedient and holy than to be unholy need not so far any fear of punishment to drive him to it Even as the Love of the world as adverse to the Love of God is overcome by Faith 1 John 2.15 and yet the Love of the world as Gods creature and as representing him and sanctified to his service is but subordinate to the Love of the Father so also Fear as adverse to Love or as disjunct from it is cast out by it But as it subserveth it in watching against the enemies of Love and is truly filial it is a fruit of Faith and the beginning of wisdom Employ Faith therefore day by day in looking into the Love of God in Christ and the Kingdom of Glory the
For he that mistaketh the extent of the Promise and thinketh that it belongeth not to such as he would believe and trust it if he understood it that it extends to him as well as others And he that doubteth of his own Repentance and Faith may yet be confident of the truth of Gods Promise to all true penitent Believers I mention this for the cure of two mischiefs The first is that of the presumptuous Opinionist who goeth to Hell presuming that he hath true saving faith because he confidently believeth that he himself is pardoned and shall be saved The second is that of the perplexed fearful Christian who thinks that all his uncertainty of his own sincerity and so of his salvation is properly unbelief and so concludeth that he cannot believe and shall not be saved Because he knoweth not that faith is such a belief and trust in Christ as will bring us absolutely and unreservedly to venture our all upon him alone And yet I must tell all these persons that all this while it is ten to one but there is really a great deal of unbelief in them which they know not and that their belief of the truth of the immortality of the soul and the life to come and of the Gospel it self is not so strong and firm as their never-doubting of it would intimate or as some of their definitions of Faith and their Book-opinions and Disputes import And it had been well for some of them that they had doubted more that they might have believed and been settled better Direct 30. Think often of the excellencies of the life of faith that the Motives may be still inducing you thereto As 1. It is but reasonable that God should be trusted or else indeed we deny him to be God Psal 20 7. 2. What else shall we trust to shall we deifie creatures and say to a stock Thou art my Father Jer. 2.27 Lam. 1.19 Shall we distrust God and trust a lyar and a worm 3. Trying times will shortly come and then woe to the soul that cannot trust in God! Then nothing else will serve our turns Then cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord he shall be like the barren wilderness c. Then none that trusted in him shall be ashamed Jer. 17.5 6. Psal 25.3 4. Psal 73.26 27 28. 4. Gods Alsufficiency leaveth no reason for the least distrust There is the most absolute certainty that God cannot fail us because his veracity is grounded on his essential perfections 5. No witness could ever stand up against the life of faith and say that he lost by trusting God or that ever God deceived any 6. The life of faith is a conquest of all that would distress the soul and it is a life of constant peace and quietness Yea it feasteth the soul upon the everlasting Joyes Though the mountains be removed though this world be turned upside down and be dissolved whether poverty or wealth sickness or health evil report or good persecution or prosperity befall us how little are we concerned in all this and how little should they do to disturb the peace and comfort of that soul who believeth that he shall live with God for ever Many such considerations should make us more willing to live by faith upon Gods Promises than to live by sense on transitory things Direct 31. Renew your Covenant with Christ in his holy Sacrament frequently understandingly and seriously For 1. when we renew our Covenant with Christ then Christ reneweth his Covenant with us and that with great advantage to our faith 1. In an appointed Ordinance which he will bless 2. By a special Minister appointed to seal and deliver it to us as in his Name 3. By a solemn Sacramental Investiture 2. And our own renewing our Covenant with him is the renewed exercise of faith which will tend to strengthen it and to shew us that we are indeed Believers And there is much in that Sacrament to help the strengthening of faith Therefore the frequent and right using of it is one of Gods appointed means to feed and maintain our spiritual life which if we neglect we wilfully starve our faith 1 Cor. 11.26 28 c. Direct 32. Keep all your own promises to God and man For 1. Lyars alwaies suspect others 2. Guilt breedeth suspiciousness 3. God in justice may leave you to your distrust of him when you will be perfidious your selves You can never be confident in God while you deal falsly with him or with others The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart a good conscience and faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 Direct 33. Labour to improve your belief of every promise for the increase of holiness and obedience And to get more upon your souls that true Image of God in his Power Wisdom and Goodness which will make it easie to you to believe him 1. The more the hypocrite seemeth to believe the promise the more he boldly ventureth upon sin and disobeyeth the precept because it was but fear that restrained him and his belief is but presumption abating fear But the more a true Christian believeth the more he flyeth from sin and useth Gods means and studieth more exact obedience and having these promises laboureth to cleanse himself from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 And receiving a Kingdom whih cannot be moved me must serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.28 29. 2. The liker the soul is to God the easier it will believe and trust him As faith causeth holiness so every part of holiness befriendeth faith Now the three great impressions of the Trinity upon us are expressed distinctly by the Apostle 2 Tim. 1.7 For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear but of Power of Love and of a sound mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power Love and a sound mind or understanding do answer Gods nature as the face in the glass doth answer our face and therefore cannot chuse but trust him Direct 34. Lay up in your memory particular pertinent and clear Promises for every particular use of faith The number is not so much but be sure that they be plain and well understood that you may have no cause to doubt whether they mean any such thing indeed or not Here some will expect that I should do this for them and gather them such promises Two things disswade me from doing it at large 1. So many Books have done it already 2. It will swell this Book too big But take these few 1. For forgiveness of all sins and Justification to penitent Believers Acts 5.31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Acts 13.38 39. Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by
moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his house by the which be condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith Note here how much the belief of Gods threatnings doth to the constitution of that faith which is justifying and saving Direct 2. Judge not of Gods threatnings by the evil which is threatned but by the obedience to which the threatnings should drive us and the evil from which they would preserve us and the order of the world which they preserve and the wisdom and holiness and justice of God which they demonstrate When men think how dreadful a misery Hell is they are ready to think hardly of God both for his threatning and execution as if it were long of him and not of themselves that they are miserable And as it is a very hard thing to think of the punishment it self with approbation so is it also to think of the threatning or Law which binds men over to it or of the Judgement which will pass the sentence on them But think of the true nature use and benefits of these threats or penaâ— Laws and true reason and faith will not only be reconciled to them but see that they are to be loved and honoured as well as feared 1. They are of great use to drive us to obedience And it is easier to see the amiableness of Gods commands than of his threats And obedience to these commands is the holy rectitude health and beauty of the soul And therefore that which is a suitable and needful means to promote obedience is amiable and beneficial to us Though Love must be the principle or chief spring of our obedience yet he that knoweth not that Fear must drive as Love must draw and is necessary in its place to joyn with Love or to do that which the weaknesses of Love leave undone doth neither know what a man is nor what Gods Word is nor what his Government is nor what either Magistracy or any civil or domestical Government is and therefore should spend many years at School before he turneth a disputer 2. They are of use to keep up order in the world which could not be expected if it were not for Gods threatnings If the world be so full of wickedness rapine and oppressions notwithstanding all the threatnings of Hell what could we expect it should be if there were none such but even as the suburbs of Hell it self When Princes and Lords and Rich men and all those thieves and rebels that can but get strength enough to defend themselves and all that can but hide their faults would be under no restraints considerable but would do all the evil that they have a mind to do Men would be worse to one another than Bears and Tygers 3. Gods threatnings in their primary intention or use are made to keep us from the punishment threatned Punishment is naturally due to evil doers And God declareth it to give us warning that we may take heed avoid it and escape 4. That which doth so clearly demonstrate the Holiness of God in his righteous Government his Wisdom and his Justice is certainly good and amiable in it self But we must not expect that the same thing should be good and amiable to the wicked who run themselves into it which is good to the world or to the just about them or to the honour of God Assizes Prisons and Gallows are good to the Country and to all the innocent to preserve their peace and to the honour of the King and his Government but not to murderers thieves or rebels Isa 26.7 8 9. Psal 48.11 9.16 89.14 97.2 149.9 146.7 37.6 28. Jude 6. 15. Rev. 4.7 15.4 16.7 19.2 Eccles 12.14 Direct 3. Judge of the severity of Gods threatnings partly by the greatness of himself whom we offend and partly by the necessity of them for the Government of the world 1. Remember that sinning wilfully against the infinite Majesty of Heaven and refusing his healing mercy to the last deserveth worse than any thing against a man can do 1 Sam. 2.25 2. And remember that even the threatning of Hell doth not serve turn with most of the world to keep them from sinning and despising God and therefore you cannot say that they are too great For that plaister draweth not too strongly which will not draw out the thorn If Hell be not terrible enough to perswade you from sin it is not too terrible to be threatned and executed He that should say Why will God make so terrible a Law and withall should say As terrible as it is I will venture on it rather than leave my pleasures and rather than live a holy life doth contradict himself and telleth us that the Law is not terrible enough to attain its chief and primary end with such as he that will not be moved by it from the most sordid base or bruitish pleasure Direct 4. Remember how Christ himself even when he came to deliver us from Gods Law did yet come to verifie his threatning in the matter of it and to be a sacrifice for sin and publick demonstration of Gods Justice For this end was Christ manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.5 8. And the first and great work of the Devil was to represent God as a lyar and to perswade Eve not to believe his threatnings and to tell her that though she sinned she should not die And though God so far dispensed with it as to forgive man the greatest part of the penalty it was by laying it on his Redeemer and making him a sacrifice to his Justice that his Cross might openly confute the Tempter and assure the world that God is just and that the wages of sin is death Rom. 6.23 though eternal life be the gift of God through Jesus Christ And he that well considereth this that the Son of God would rather stoop to sufferings and death than the Dâ—vils reproach of Gods threatnings should be made true and than the Justice of God against sin should not be manifested will sure never think that this Justice is any dishonour to the Almighty Direct 5. Let this be your use of the threatnings of God to drive you from sin to more careful obedience and to help you against the defects of love and to set them against every temptation when you are assaulted by it When a tempting bait is set before you set Hell against it as well as Heaven and say Can I take this cup this whore this preferment this gain of Judas with Hell for my part instead of Heaven If men threaten death imprisonment or any other penalty or if losses or reproaches be like by men to be made your reward remember that God threatneth Hell and ask whether this be not the most intollerable suffering And if any Antinomian revile you for thus doing and say You should set only Free Grace before you to keep you
Covenant and he inflicteth penalties yea some that are very grievous even the with-holding of much of his Spirits help and grace all which are inconsistent with that conceit nor would he so have used us if we had been perfectly innocent and had fully satisfied for our sins our selves 8. All men would have had present possession of Glory if God had so reputed us the perfect meriters of it For his Justice would no more have delayed our reward than denyed it 9. All that are saved would have equal degrees of holiness and happiness as well as of righteousness because all would equally be reputed the perfect fulfillers of the Law And as no penalty could ever be justly inflicted on them here so no degree of glory could be denyed them hereafter for their sin or for want of perfect righteousness 10. The opinion of this kind of imputation is a most evident contradiction in it self For he that is imputatively a satisfier for all his own sin is therein supposed to be a sinner And he that is imputatively a perfect innocent fulfiller of the Law is thereby supposed to need no satisfaction to Justice for his sin as being imputatively no sinner 11. By this all Christs sacrifice and satisfaction is made a work of needless supererrogation yea unjust or rather impossible For if we perfectly obeyed in him he could not suffer for our disobedience 12. Hereby pardon of sin is utterly denyed for he that is reputatively no sinner hath no sin to pardon If they say that God did first impute the satisfaction for sin then there was no room after for the imputation of perfect obedience We cannot feign God to receive all the debt or inflict all the penalty and then to say now I will esteem thee one that never didst deserve it If they say that he doth neither impute the obedience or the suffering to us simply and to all effects but in tantum ad hoc or secundum quid only so that we shall be pardoned for his suffering and then judged worthy of Heaven for his obedience this is but to come up towards the truth before you are aware and to confess that neither of them is given us in it self but in the effects as being it self paid to God to procure those effects But withall the matter must be vindicated from their unfound inventions and it must be said that Christ dyed not only for our sins of commission but of omission also and that he that is pardoned both his sins of commission and omission is free from the punishment both of sense and loss yea and is reputed as one that never culpably omitted any duty and consequently fell short of no reward by such omission so that there remaineth no more necessity of Righteousness in order to a reward where the pardon is perfect save only N. B. to procure us that degree of reward which must be superadded to what we forfeited by our sin and which we never by any culpable omission deserved to be denyed And thus much we do not deny that somewhat even Adoption which is more than meer Pardon and Justification must confer on us But withall as we hold not that the Sun must bring light and somewhat else must first banish darkness that one thing must cure death and another cause life that satisfaction must procure the pardon of sins of omission and commission as to the poenae damni sensus and make us esteemed and used as no sinners and then imputed obedience must give us right to that reward which the poenae damni deprived us of so N. B. we maintain that Christs sufferings have merited our eternal salvation and our Justification and Adoption and that his obedience hath merited our forgiveness of sin And that both go together the merit of the one and of the other to procure all that we receive and that the effects are not parcelled out as they have devised Though yet we believe that Christs sufferings were paid to God as for our sins to satisfie Justice and that in the Passive Obedience it is first satisfactory and then and therefore meritorious and in the active it is meerly meritorious 13. And the maintainers of the contrary opinion besides all the forementioned evils could never agree how much of Christs Righteousness must be in their sense imputed some holding only the passive a second sort the active and passive a third sort the habitual active and passive a fourth sort the divine the habitual the active and the passive But of all these things there is so much written against them by Cargius Vrsinus Olevian Piscator Paraeus Scultetus Alstedius Wendeline Camero Bradshaw Gataker and many more that I need not to add any more for confutation Errour 3. That no one shall suffer whose sins lay on Christ and were suffered for by him Contr. Many such shall suffer the sorer punishment for sinning against the Lord that bought them and treading under foot the blood of the Covenant wherewith they were so far sanctified as to be a people by their own Covenant separated to God Heb. 10.25 26. Heb. 6.4 5 6. 2 Pet. 2.2 Heb. 4.1 2.3 12.29 Errour 4. That no godly man say some or Elect person though ungodly say others is ever punished by God because Christ suffered all their punishment himself Contr. Every godly man is chastened of God and all chastisement is a fatherly correcting punishment And many justified persons are punished to their final loss by the denyal of forfeited degrees of grace and consequently of glory Heb. 12.7 8 9 10. 1 Cor. 11.32 1 Thes 5.19 Ephes 4.30 But sad experience is too full a proof See my Confession Errour 5. That God were unjust if he laid any degree of punishment on those that Christ died for or say others on the justified because he should punish one sin twice Contr. It is certain that God punisheth the Justified in some degree much more the Elect before conversion and it is certain that God is not unjust Therefore it is certain that the ground of this accusation is false for it was not our deserved punishment it self or the same which was due in the true sense of the Law which Christ endured but it was the punishment of a voluntary sponsor which was the equivalens and not the idem that was due and did answer the ends of the Law but not fulfill the meaning of the threatning which threatned the sinner himself and not another for him seeing then it was a satisfaction or sacrifice for sin which God received for an attonement and propitiation and not a solution or suffering of the sinner himself in the sense of the Law the charge of injustice on God is groundless And no man can have more right to Christs sufferings or benefits than he himself is willing to give And it is not his own will into whose hands all power and judgement is committed that we should be subject to no punishment because he suffered
7. 2 Cor. 13.14 1 John 4.16 Prop. 12. When Sanctification is mentioned as a gift consequent to Faith it is the Love of God as our Father in Christ and the Spirit of Love that is principally meant by that Sanctification Prop. 13. The pardon of sin consisteth more in forgiving the poenam damni the forfeiture and loss of Love and the Spirit of Love than in remitting any corporal pain of sense And the restoring of Love and the Spirit of Love and the perfecting hereof in Heaven is the most eminent part of our executive Pardon Justification and Adoption Thus far Sanctification is Pardon it self Rom. 8.15 16 17. Gal. 4 6. 1 Cor. 6.10 11. Titus 3.6 7. Titus 2.13 14. Rom. 6. Rom. 8.4 10 13. Prop. 14. The pardon of the pain of sense is given us as a means to the executive pardon of the pain of loss that is to put us in a capacity with doubled obligations and advantages to Love God Luke 7.47 Prop. 15. Sanctification therefore being better than all other pardon of sin as being its end we must value it more and must make it our first desire to be as holy as may be that we may need as little forgiveness as may be and in the second place only desire the pardon of that which we had rather not have committed and not make pardon our chief desire Rom. 6 7 8. throughout Gal. 5.17 to the end Prop. 16. Holiness is the true Morality and they that prefer the preaching and practice of Faith in Christ bâ—fore the preaching and practice of Holiness and sleight this as meer morality do prefer the means before the end and their physick before their health And they that preach or think to practise Holiness without Faith in Christ do dream of a cure without the only Physician of souls And they that preach up Morality as consisting in meer justice charity to men and temperance without the Love of God in Christ do take a branch cut off and withered for the tree Some ignorant Sectaries cry down all Preaching as meer morality which doth not frequently toss the name of Christ and Free Grace And some ungodly Preachers who never felt the work of Faith or Love to God in their own souls for want of holy experience savour not and understand not holy Preaching and therefore spend almost all their time in declaiming against some particular vices and speaking what they have learned of some vertues of sobriety justice or mercy And when they have done cover over their ungodly unbelieving course by reproaching the weaknesses of the former sort who cry down Preaching meer morality But let such know that those Ministers and Christians who justly lament their lifeless kind of Preaching do mean by morality that which you commonly call Ethicks in the Schools which leaveth out not only Faith in Christ but the Love of God and the Sanctification of the Spirit and the heavenly Glory And they do not cry down true morality but these dead branches of it which are all your morality It is not morality it self inclusively that they blame but meer morality that is so much only as Aristotles Ethicks teach as exclusive to the Christian Faith and Love And do you think with any wise men or with your own consciences long to find it a cloak to your Infidel or unholy hearts and doctrine to mistake them that blame you or to take advantage of that ignorance of others The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost do shut up your Liturgy by way of Benediction but it is almost all shut out of your Sermons unless a few heartless customary passages And when there is nothing less in your preaching than that which is the substance of your Baptismal Covenant and Christianity and your customary Benediction you do but tell the people what kind of Christianity you have and what Benediction that is that you are neither truly Christians nor Blessed True Morality or the Christian Ethicks is the Love of God and man stirred up by the Spirit of Christ through Faith and exercised in works of Piety Justice Charity and Temperance in order to the attainment of everlasting happiness in the perfect vision and fruition of God And none but ignorant or brain-sick Sectaries will be offended for the Preaching of any of this Morality Luke 11.42 Wâ— to you Pharisees for ye tythe Mint and Rue and pass over Judgment and the Love of God These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone CHAP. X. The Practical Directions to live by Faith a life of Holiness or Love Direct 1. TAke Jesus Christ as a Teacher sent from Heaven the best and surest revealer of God and his Will unto mankind All the Books of Philosophers are sapless and empty in comparison of the teaching of Jesus Christ they are but enquiries into the nature of the creatures and the lowest things most impertinent to our happiness or duty Or if they rise up to God it is but with dark and unpractical conjectures for the most part of them and the rest do but grope and fumble in obscurity And their learning is mostly but useless speculations and striving about words and sciences falsly so called which little tend to godly edifying It is Christ who is made wisdom to us as being himself the wisdom of God If you knew but where to hear an Angel you would all prefer him before Aristotle or Plato or Cartesius or Gassendus how much more the Son himself He is the true Light to lighten every man that will not serve the Prince of darkness Christians were first called Christs Disciples and therefore to learn of him the true knowledge of God is the work of every true Believer John 17. â— Acts 3.23 John 8.43 47. 10.3 27. 12.47 14.24 Matth. 17.5 Direct 2. Remember that Christs way of Teaching is 1 By his Word 2. His Ministers 3. And his Spirit conjunct and the place for his Disciples is in his Church 1. His Gospel written is his Book which must be taught us 2. His Ministers office is to teach it us 3. His Spirit is inwardly to illuminate us that we may understand it And he that will despise or neglect either the Scripture Ministry or Spirit is never like to learn of Christ Direct 3. Look on the Lord Jesus and the work of mans Redemption by him as the great designed Revelation of the Fathers Love and Goodness even as the fabrick of the world is set up to be the Glass or Revelation eminently of his Greatness Therefore as you chuse your Book for the sake of the Science or subject which you would learn so let this be the designed studied constant use which you make of Christ to see and admire in him the Fathers Love When you read your Grammar if one ask you why you will say it is to learn the language which it teacheth and
Image of God It s essence is a Living Spirit It s essential faculties are 1. A Vital Activity or Power 2. An Vnderstanding 3. A Will. 13. His Rectitude which is Gods Moral Image on him consisteth 1. In the promptitude and fortitude of his Active Power 2. In the Wisdom of his Vnderstanding 3. In the Moral Goodness of his Will which is its Inclination to its End and Readiness for its Duty 14. Being created such a creature by a meer resultancy from his Nature and his Creator he is related to him as his Creature and in that Unity is the subsequent Trinity of Relations 1. As we are Gods Propriety or his Own 2. His Subjects 3. His Beneficiaries and Lovers all comprized in the one title of his children And at once with these Relations of man to God it is that God is as before related to man as his Creator and as his Owner Ruler and Chief Good 15. Man is also related to his fellow creatures below him 1. As their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their End under God which is Gods Dominative or Honorary Image upon man and is called commonly our Dominion over the creatures So that by meer Creation and the Nature of the creatures there is constituted a state of communion between God and Man which is 1. A Dominion 2. A Kingdom 3. A Family or Paternity And the whole is sometime called by one of these names and sometime by the other still implying the rest 16. Gods Kingdom being thus constituted his Attributes appropriate to these his Relations follow 1. His Absoluteness as our Owner 2. His Holiness Truth and Justice as our Ruler 3. And his Kindness Benignity and Mercy as our Father or Benefactor 17. And then the Works of God as in these three Relations follow which are 1. To Dispose of us at his pleasure as our Owner 2. To govern us as our King 3. To love us and do us good and make us perfectly happy as our Benefactor and our end 18. And here more particularly is to be considered 1. How God disposed of Adam when he had new made him 2. How he began his Government of him And 3. What Benefits he gave him and what he further offered or promised him 19. And as to the second we must 1. Consider the Antecedent part of Gods Government which is Legislation and then herafter the consequent part which is 1. Judgment 2. Execution And Gods Legislation is 1. By making our Natures such as compared with objects Duty shall result from this Nature so related 2. Or else by Precept or Revelation from himself besides our Natures 1. The Law of Nature is fundamental and radical in our foresaid Relations to God themselves in which it is made our natural duty 1. To submit our selves wholly to God and his disposal as his own 2. To obey his commands 3. And to receive his mercies and thankfully to return them and to love him But though as Gods essential principles and his foresaid Relations are admirably conjunct in their operations ad extra so our Relative obligations are conjunct yet are they so far distinguishable that we may say that these which conjunctly make our Moral duty yet are not all the results of our Relation to a Governour as such but the second only and therefore that only is to be called the Radical Law in the strict sense the other two being the Moral results of our Rectitude The duty of subjection and obedience in general arising from our Natures related to our Creator is the radical governing Law of God in us But yet the same submission and gratitude and love which are primarily our duty from their proper foundations are secondarily made also the matter of our subjective duty because they are also commanded of God 2. The particular Laws of Nature are 1. Of our particular duties to God or of Piety 2. Or of our duties to our selves and others 1. Acts of Justice 2. And of Charity These Laws of Nature are 1. Vnalterable and that is where the nature of our persons and of the objects which are the foundations of them are unalterable or still the same 2. Or mutable when the Nature of the things which are its foundation is mutable As it is the immutable Law of immutable nature that we love God as God and that we do all the good we can c. because the foundation of it is immutable But e. g. the Law against Incest was mutable in nature For nature bound Adams children to marry each other and nature bindeth us since ordinarily to the contrary 2. The revealed Law to Adam was superinduced The parts of Gods Law must also here be considered 1. The introductive Teaching part for Gods teaching us is part of his ruling us and that is Doctrines History and Prophecy 2. The Imperative part commands to do and not to do 3. And the sanctions or motive parts in Law and execution which are 1. Promises of Beneficial Rewards 2. Threatnings of hurtful penalties 20. Gods Laws being thus described in general and those made to Adam thus in particular the next thing to be considered is mans behaviour in breaking those Laws which must be considered in the Causes and the Nature of it and the immediate effects and consequents 21. And next must be considered Gods consequent part of Government as to Adam viz. his judging him according to his Law 22. And here cometh in the Promise or the first edition of the New Covenant or Law of Grace which must be opened in its parts original and end 23. And then must be considered Gods execution of his sentence on Adam so far as he was unpardoned and so upon the world till the end 24. And next must be considered Gods enlargements and explications of his Covenant of Grace till Christs Incarnation 25. And next mens behaviour under that explained Covenant 26. And Gods sentence and execution upon them thereupon 27. Then we come to the fulness of time and to explain the work of Redemption distinctly And 1. It s Original the God of Nature giving the world a Physician or a Saviour 2. The Ends 3. The constitutive Causes Where 1. Of the Person of the Redeemer in his Essence as God and Man and in his perfections both essential and modal and accidental 28. And 2. Of the fundamental works of our Redemption such as Creation was to the first Administration viz. his first Vndertaking Interposition and Incarnation being all presupposed 1. His perfect Resignation of himself to his Father and submission to his disposing Will 2. His perfect subjection and obedience to his Coverning Will 3. His perfect Love to him 4. And the suffering by which he exprest all these The three first meriting of themselves and the last meriting as a satisfactory Sacrifice not for it self but for its usefulness to its proper ends 29. From this Offering once made to God Christ acquired the perfecter title of a Saviour or Redeemer or Mediatour which one contained
other The Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who raâ—l against us for trying the Spirit by the Scriptures when as the Spirit was the Author of the Scriptures do but rave in the dark and know not what they say For the Essence of the Spirit is every where and it is the effects of the Spirit in both which we must compare The Spirit is never contrary to it self And seeing it is the Sunshine which we here call the Sun the question is but where it shineth most whether in the Scripture or in our hearts The Spirit in the Apostles indited the Scriptures to be the Rule of our faith and life unto the end The Spirit in us doth teach and help us to understand and to obey those Scriptures Was not the Spirit in a greater measure in the Apostles than in us Did it not work more compleatly and unto more infallibility in their writing the Scriptures than it doth in our Vnderstanding and obeying them Is not the seal perfect when the impression is oft imperfect Doth not the Master write his Copy more perfectly than his Scholars imitation is though he teach him yea and hold his hand He that knoweth not the Religious distractions of this age will blame me for troubling the Reader with the confutation of such dreams But so will not they that have seen and tasted their effects 4. Hence we may learn that he that would know what the Christian Religion is indeed to the honour of God or their own just information must rather look into the Scripture to know it than into Believers For though in Believers it be more discernable in the kind as mens lives are more conspicuous than Laws and Precepts and the impress than the seal c. yet it is in the Laws or Scriptures more compleat and perfect when in the best of Christians much more in the most it is broken maimed and confused 5. This telleth us the reason why it is unsafe to make any men Popes or Councils or the holiest Pastors or strictest people the Rule either of our faith or lives Because they are all imperfect and discordant when the Scripture is concordant and compleat He that is led by them may erre when as the Scripture hath no errour And yet it is certain that even the imperfect knowledge and grace of faithful Pastors and companions is of great use to those that are more imperfect than they to teach them the Scriptures which are more perfect than they all 6. Hence we see why it is that Religion bringeth so much trouble and so little comfort to the most or too many that are in part Religious Because it is lame and confused in them Is it any wonder that a dâ—splaced bone is painful or that a disordered body is sick and hath no great pleasure in life or that a disordered or maimed watch or clock doth not go right O what a life of pleasure should we live if we were but such as the Scripture doth require and the Religion in our hearts and lives were fully agreeable with the Religion described in the Word of God 7. And hence we see why most true Christians are so querulous and have alwaies somewhat to complain of and lament which the sensless or self-justifying hypocrites overlook in themselves No wonder if such diseased souls complain 8. And hence we see why there is such diversity and divisions among Believers and such abundance of Sects and Parties and Contentions and so little Unity Peace and Concord And why all attempts for Unity take so little in the Church Because they have all such weakness and distempers and lameness and confusedness and great disproportions in their Religion Do you wonder why he liveth not in peace and concord and quietness with others who hath no better agreement in himself and no more composedness and true peace rt home Mens grace and parts are much unequal 9. And hence we see why there are so many scandals among Christians to the great dishonour of true Christianity and the great hinderance of the conversion of the Infidel Heathen and ungodly world What wonder if some disorder falshood and confusion appear without in words and deeds when there is so much ever dwelling in the mind 10. Lastly Hence we may learn what to expect from particular persons and what to look for also publickly in the Church and in the world He that knoweth what man is and what godly men are but as well as I do will hardly expect a concordant uniform building to be made of such discordant and uneven materials or that a set of strings which are all or almost all out of tune should make any harmonious melody or that a number of Infants should constitute an Army of valiant men or that a company that can scarce spell or read should constitute a learned Academy God must make a change upon individual persons if ever he will make a great change in the Church They must be more wise and charitable and peaceable Christians who must make up that happy Church state and settle that amiable peace and serve God in that concordant harmony as all of us desire and some expect CHAP. XII How to use Faith against particular sins THE most that I have to say of this is to be gathered from what went before about Sanctification in the general And because I have been so much longer than I intended you must bear with my necessary brevity in the rest Direct 1. When temptation setteth actual sin before you or inward sin keeps up within look well on God and sin together Let Faith see Gods Holiness and Justice and all that Wisdom Goodness and Power which sin despiseth And one such believing sight of God is enough to make you look at sin as at the Devil himself as the most ugly thing Direct 2. Set sin and the Law of God together and then it will appear to be exceeding sinful and to be the crooked fruit of the tempting Serpent You cannot know sin but by the Law Rom. 7.14 c. Direct 3. Set sin before the Cross of Christ Let Faith sprinkle his blood upon it and it will die and wither See it still as that which killed your Lord and that which pierced his side and hanged him up in such contempt and put the gall and vinegar to his mouth Direct 4. Forget not the sorrows and fears of your conversion if you are indeed converted Or if not at least the sorrows and fears which you must feel if ever you be converted God doth purposely cast us into grief and terrours for our former sins that it may make us the more careful to sin no more lest worse befall us If the pangs of the new birth were sharp and grâ—â—vous to you why will you again renew the cause and drink of those bitter waters Râ—member what a mad and sad condition you were in while you lived according to the flesh and how plainly you saw it when your eyes were opened And
Matth. 25. 2 Pet. 4.13 Direct 7. Thinks what a day it will be to the shame of sin when it shall be the reproach and terrour of the world and to the Honour of Holiness when faith obedience and love shall be the approved honour of all the Saints And what a day of admirable Justice it will be when all that seems crooked here shall be set strait O the difference that there will then be in the thoughts of sin and holiness in comparison of those that men have of them now Direct 8. Think what a confounding day it will be to the infernal Serpent and all his seed Matth. 25.41 16. When impudent boasters shall then be speechless and all iniquity shall stop her mouth Matth. 25.44 22.12 Psal 107.42 And when Lazarus shall be seen in Abraham's bosome and the enemies of the Saints shall see them advanced as Haman did Mâ—rdecai and rejoycing when the Glory of Christ is revealed 1 Pet. 4.13 When every scorners mouth shall be stopped and all stand guilty before their Judge Rom. 3.4.19 and the wretched unprepared souls must for departing from God be sentenced to depart into misery for ever Matth. 25.41 46. Jude v. 6. Direct 9. And think what a change that day beginneth both with the Saints and with the world What a glory is it that we must immediately possess in body and soul and how we must partake of the Kingdom of our Lord Saints shall be scorned and persecuted no more The threatnings and promises of Christ shall be no more denyed by unbelievers Sin will be no more in honour nor pride and sensuality bear sway The Church will be no more ecclipsed either by its lamentable imperfections and diseased members or by the divisions of sects or the scatterings of the cruel or the slanders of the lying tongue Ephes 5.17 Satan will no more tempt or trouble us Rev. 12.9 Matth. 25.41 Sin and death will be excluded and all the fears and horrours of both For the face of Infinite Love will perfectly and perpetually shine upon us and shine us into perfect perpetual Glory Love and Joy and will feed these and the thankful and praâ—seful expressions of them to all eternity Matth. 5.46 2 Cor. 4.17 Rev. 2 3. Direct 10. Lastly Think how neer all this must needs be If the day of the Lord was near in the times of the Apostles it cannot be far off to us If the worlds duration be to six thousand years the time which arrogant presumption most plausibly guesseth at it will be less than 350 years to it Though we know not the time we know it cannot be long And let me conclude with a warning to both sorts of Readers And 1. To the ungodly unprepared sinner Poor soul dost thou believe this dreadful day or not if not why dost thou dissemble by professing it in thy Creed if thou do how 〈◊〉 thou live so merrily or quietly in a careless unprepared state Canst thou possibly forget so great so sure so near a day Alas it will be another kind of meeting than Christ had with sinners upon earth when he came in meekness and humiliation not to judge and condemn the world bâ—t to be falsly judged and condemned by them John 3.17 12.47 Nor will it be such a meeting as Christ had with thee either by his Ministers that called thee to repent who were men whom thou couldest easily despise or by his Spirit which thou couldest resist and quench or by his afflicting Rod which did but say to thee Go sin no more lest worse befall thee Joh. 5.14 Heb. 12.10 12. 1 Tim. 5.24 Nor as the Judgment of mans Assize which passeth sentence only against a temporal life Luke 12.4 Nor like the treaty of a Judas with his new awakened conscience here O no! It will be a more glorious but more dreadful day It will be the meeting not only of a creature with his Creatour but of a sinner with a just and holy God and of a despiser of grace with the God whom he despised O terrible day to the unbelieving ungodly carnal and impenitent Heb. 10.31 2.3 10.12 Luke 19.27 There must thou appear to receive thy final doom to hear the last word that ever thou must hear from Jesus Christ unless his everlasting wrath be called his Word And O how different will it be from the words which thou wast wont to hear Thou wast wont to hear the calls of grace Mercy did intreat thee to return to God Christ by his Ministers did beseech thee to be reconciled But if thou intreat him for pardon and peace with the loudest cryes it would be all in vain Matth. 7.21 22 23. Prev 1.27 28. Now the voice is Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world John 1.29 But then it will be Behold he cometh with clouds end every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him Rev. 1.7 And behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute Judgment upâ—n all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jude 14 15. Now he entreateth you to come to him that you may have life John 5 40. But then you will cry to the Mountains to fall upon you and the hills to cover you from his presence Luke 23.30 Rev. 6.16 Now he saith Behold I stand at the door and knock If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me Rev. 3.20 But when once you hear that midnight cry Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye forth and meet him then they that are ready shall go in and the door shall be shut against the rest Matth. 25.9 10. The door of mercy shall be shut Your Reprobation will be then made sure Rom. 9.22 2.5 The day of thy visitation is then past Luke 19.41 42. No more offers of Christ and mercy No more intreaties to accept them No more calls to turn and live Minâ—sters must no more preach and perswade and intreat in vain Friends must no more warn thee and pray for thee All is done already that they can do for thy soul for ever No more strivings of the Spirit with thy conscience and no more patience health or time to be abused upon fleshly lusts and pleasures All these things are past away 1 Cor. 7.31 2 Cor. 4.17 And the door of Hope will be also shut No more hope of a part in Christ No more hope of the success of Sermons of Prayers or of any other means No hopes of pardon of justification of salvation or of any abatement of thy woe Luke 16.25.26 Behold this is the accepted time behold this is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 Heb. 6.4 5 6 8
be doth the Scripture say that all men believe or only some If some doth it name them or notifie them by any thing but the marks by which they must find it in themselves Object But he that believeth may be as sure that he believeth as that the Scripture is true Answ But not that he is sincere and exceedeth all hypocrites and common believers At least there are but few that get so full an assurance hereof Object The Spirit witnesseth that we are Gods children And to believe the Spirit is to believe God Answ The Spirit is oft called in Scripture the witness and pledge and earnest in the same sense that is it is the evidâ—nce of our right to Christ and life If any man have not his Spirit he is none of his Rom. 8.9 And hereby we know that he dweleth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us As the Spirits Miracles were the witness of Christ Heb. 2.3 c. objectively as evidence is called witness 2. And withall the Spirit by illumination and excitation helpeth us to see it self as our evidence 3. And to rejoyce in this discovery And thus the Spirit witnesseth our adoption But none of these are the proper objects of a Divine Belief 1. The objective evidence of holiness in us is the object of our rational self-acquaintance or conscience only 2. The illuminating grace by which we see this is not a new Divine Testimony or proper Revelation or Word of God but the same help of grace by which all other divine things are known And all the Spirits grace for our understanding of divine Revelations are not new objective Revelations themselves requiring a new act of Faith for them A word or proper Revelation from God is the object of divine belief otherwise every illuminating act of the Spirit for our understanding Gods Word would be it self a new word to be believed and so in infinitum Errour 33. Doubting of the life to come or of the truth of the Gospel will not stand with saving Faith Contr. It will not stand with a confirmed Faith but it will with a sincere Faith He that doubteth of the truth of the promise so far as that he will not venture life and soul and all his hopes and happiness temporal and eternal upon it hath no true Faith But he that doubteth but yet so far belâ—eveth the Gospel as to take God for his only God and portion and Christ for his only Saviour and the Spirit for his Sanctifier and will cast away life or all that stand in competition hath a true and saving Faith as is before proved Errour 34. That Repentance is no condition of Pardon or Justification for then it would be equal therein with Faith Contr. I have elsewhere at large proved the contrary from Scripture Repentance hath many acts as Faith hath To repent as it is the change of the mind of our Atheism Idolatry and not loving God and obeying him is the same motion of the soul denominated from the terminus à quo as Faith in God and Love to God is denominated from the terminus ad quem This is Repentance towards God Repenting of our Infidelity against Christ is the same motion of the soul as believing in Christ only one is denominated from the object-turned from and the other from the object-turned to By which you may see that some Repentance is the same with Faith in Christ and some is the same with Faith in God and some is the same with Love to God and some is but the same with the leaving of some particular sin or turning to some particular fore-neglected duty And so you may easily resolve the case how far it is the condition of Pardon Repentance aâ— it is a return to the Love of God as he is our God and End and All is made the final condition of further blessings as necessary in and of it self as the end of Faith in Christ And Repentance of Infidelity and Faith in Christ is made the Mediate or Medicinal Condition As consenting to be friends with your Father or King after a rebellion and consenting to the Mediation of a friend to reconcile you are both conditions one the more noble de fine and the other de mediis or as consenting to be cured and consenting to take Physick They that will or must live in the darkness of confusion were best at least hold their tongues there till they come into distinguishing light Errour 35. That all other acts of Faith in Christ as our Lord or Teacher or Judge or of Faith in God or the Holy Ghost all confessing sin and praying for pardon and repenting and forgiving others and receiving Baptism c. are the works which Paul excludeth from Justification And one act of faith only being the Justifying Instrument he that looketh to be justified by any of all these besides that one act doth look for Justification by Works and consequently is fallen from grace Contr. This is not only an addition to Gods Word and Covenant not to be used by them that judge it unlawful to add a form or ceremony in his worship but it is a most dangerous invention to wrack mens consciences and keep all men under certain desperation For whilest the world standeth the subtilest of these Inventers of new doctrines will never be able to tell the world which is that one sole act of Faith by which they are justified that they may escape looking for a legal Justification by the rest whether it be believing in Christs Divinity or Humanity or both or in his Divine or Humane or Habitual Righteousness or his Obedience as a subjâ—ct or his Sacrifice or his Priest-hood offering that Sacrifice or his Covenant and Promise of Pardon and Justification or in God that giveth him and them or in his Resurrections or in Gods present sentential or executive Justification or in his final sentential Justification c. No man to the end of the world shall know which of these or any other is the sole justifying act and so no man can scape being a legal adversary to grace Unhappy Papists who by the contrary extream have frightened or disputed us into such wild and scandalous inventions Of this see fully my Disput of Justification against the worthy and excellent Mr. Anthony Burgess Errour 36. That our own Faith is not at all imputed to us for Righteousness but only Christs Righteousness received by it Contr. The Scripture no where saith that Christ or his Righteousness or his Obedience or his Satisfaction is imputed to us And yet we justly defend it as is before explained and as Mr. Bradshaw and Grotius de satisfact have explained it And on the other side the Scripture often saith that Faith is imputed for Righteousness and shall be so to all that believe in God that raised Christ Rom. 4. And this these objectors peremptorily deny But expounding Scripture amiss is a much cleanlier pretence for errour than a flat